


depth of every touch is real as you need

by peraltiaghoe



Category: Brooklyn Nine-Nine (TV)
Genre: Car Sex, Developing Friendships, Developing Relationship, Drunk Sex, Emotional Roller Coaster, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Fluff and Smut, Friends With Benefits, Friends to Lovers, Friendship/Love, Get Together, Getting Together, I have so many jokes I hate myself, I think I'm funny in this fic I swear, Idiots in Love, Light Angst, Long, Lots of Plot hello, Love, Oral Sex, Peraltiago, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Porn With Plot, Sex Toys, Shower Sex, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Slow Romance, Smut, dumb they're dumb, ignore me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-12-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:15:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 25
Words: 267,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22260925
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peraltiaghoe/pseuds/peraltiaghoe
Summary: Peraltiago, a one-night-stand gone wrong, an acquaintances to friends with benefits fic.Chapter one set in Cop Con, parallels to the Bet in honor of today being the sixth anniversary of the day amy flirted with jake for twenty seconds and he became obsessed with her forever.work title from Tame Impala's Sundown Syndrome.the depth of every touch is real as you need,but words don't do any favors for me.
Relationships: Jake Peralta & Amy Santiago, Jake Peralta/Amy Santiago
Comments: 795
Kudos: 725





	1. way too real, i'm way too sober

**Author's Note:**

> This is partially finished. ¨̮ It has an ending, I'm just still organizing and adjusting the middle chapters. No word yet on exactly how many chapters it will be (word count is currently at 35k and I still have more to write) and I am undecided on how frequently I will update, but rest assured that the next few chapters are ready for you. Also, thus far, every single completed chapter contains smut. 
> 
> Without further ado, the work that has been preventing me from focusing on any of my other WIPs. 
> 
> Chapter title from Tame Impala's Reality in Motion. 
> 
> _i'm edging closer, shivers all over,_  
>  _it's way too real, i'm way too sober._  
>  _usually they've got you covered all over,_  
>  _lack of composure, i'm walking over,_  
>  _what will you do?_

Cop-Con was one of Amy’s favorite NYPD-sponsored events. She loved getting to test out all of the new equipment and technology. There were so many great seminars and presentations for her to see. Beyond that, it was great to meet all sorts of different superiors and colleagues that she could collaborate and exchange stories with. 

She _didn’t_ come to cop-con for the party that Buffalo PD always put on, but it was an added perk. This year, she had an early seminar to hit in the morning, so she wouldn’t be able to be as uninhibited at the party as she may have been in previous years. Not that she was ever exactly _uninhibited_ , per se, but she was begrudgingly sipping on a water in the corner of the room instead of something stronger this time around. 

Her partner had dragged her to the party because _they weren’t going to miss the Buffalo PD party just because she couldn’t figure out how to shake hands without some old guy’s guidance and approval_. She rolled her eyes when Rosa had said that, and she was rolling them again now. 

Loud music coursed through the room, and normally she’d be three drinks in by now and wouldn’t have a care in the world, but tonight she was gritting her teeth and staring at Rosa from across the room. She was waiting for her to inevitably get tired of the group of drunk people she was talking to and gesture to the door, finally giving her an out. She could almost feel the cool sheets on her skin, and it was a feeling she was craving more than she had previously noticed. 

She was torn from her thoughts when someone bumped into her. Hands on her waist quickly steadied her before they backed off completely, palms facing her in a gesture of apology and innocence. Behind the hands was a man, a few inches taller than her with fluffy curls in a mess tipping onto his forehead. 

“I’m so sorry,” he smiled at her, and it was a goofy smile that put her at ease despite him almost knocking her over a few seconds before. “I wasn’t looking where I was going.” 

She shrugged. “It’s fine.”

“Hey,” he began as soon as she finished, ducking closer so she could hear him over the music. “Could you actually help me out with something? My friend over there,” he gestured behind him to a shorter man, who waved at her across the room, “bet me that I couldn’t–– Are you drinking water?” 

She looked down at the water bottle in her hands and laughed. “Yeah, I have to be up early.” 

He frowned. “But it’s Cop-Con,” he whined, sticking his lower lip out just a little. 

She laughed again. “What was the bet?” 

His expression picked back up at the mention of the bet, and his dark eyes twinkled as he filled her in. “He bet me that I couldn’t catch food, thrown across the room by a stranger, in my mouth.”

She grimaced, and he held his hands up again. “Wait, don’t say no! The bet is that I can only ask one person, and I just asked you. Are you going to let me lose out on a bet that I can _definitely_ win because you don’t want to throw a peanut across the room?” 

She studied him closely as he reached his hand into his pocket and pulled out a peanut, still in its shell. Without deciding to, she was laughing at his goofy expression, at his chaotic energy, clearly tipsy and with pockets that contained at least one peanut. 

“Don’t you want to see if I can do it?” He pleaded, rocking forward on his toes much in the way a child would. She was reminded of the way that she used to sing itsy-bitsy spider for her friends’ parents as a child. He was doing anything he could to charm her into agreeing to throw a peanut at him. 

She held her hand out for the peanut. He gasped, quickly cracking open the shell before she changed her mind. He shoved the shell back into his pocket and grasped onto her hand with both hands as he handed her the peanut. “Thank you! You won’t regret it!” 

He turned and ran across the room, and she quickly learned that she _would_ regret it. Before she had an opportunity to veto the action, he was standing on a chair across the room, hands cupped around his mouth so everyone could hear him yelling over the music. 

“Excuse me, fellow officers of the NYPD–– Can somebody shut off the music?” He paused, and someone cut the music. “Thank you.” 

He was gaining a crowd now. Everyone in the room was looking at him. 

“Once upon a time, in a land not far away at all, I was bet that I could not get a stranger to successfully throw a peanut across this room and into my mouth,” he began dramatically. There were snickers from the crowd. “That day…” he paused for emphasis, “is _today_.” 

“My lovely partner,” he gestured across the room at her. Everyone turned to look at Amy. She waved half-heartedly, trying her hardest to avoid Rosa’s questioning gaze. He continued, “whomst will remain unnamed, will help me to achieve this insurmountable goal, with you all as our witness.” 

She recognized Rosa’s laugh among the crowd. The man held up his hand. “For this to work, we’re going to need complete and total silence.” He waited until the crowd hushed. “Lovely partner,” he gestured to her, “whenever you’re ready.” 

Someone began beating out a quiet drumroll sort of sound, and just as she was about to throw the peanut, he started gesturing for them to get louder. “Actually, drumroll _definitely_ beats silence. Let’s go with that.” 

She rolled her eyes and waited for him to look back at her, serenaded and only moderately distracted by the hundred or so pairs of hands beating on various surfaces around the room. She took a deep breath. It had been a while since she’d had to throw something across a room with great accuracy, and it was a much less daunting task before she had so many of her colleagues’ eyes on her. He nodded slightly toward her and offered up that goofy, genuine smile again. 

She tossed the tiny peanut across the room, and much to her surprise, he _caught it_. The room erupted into cheers. The music immediately returned. The man threw his arms up in the air, appearing to do his best to not look surprised, then hopped off of his chair and made his way back to her. He looked like he was going to reach down and pick her up, but he caught himself and instead held his hand up for a high-five. 

“Hey, we make a great team,” he shouted, offering that stupid smile that had her smiling back with just as much intensity, and her facial expressions _weren’t_ sponsored by alcohol like his were, and she really needed to get a handle on herself. 

From over the man’s shoulder, she could see Rosa looking at her with raised eyebrows, jaw slack and pointing at the man in a way that was more than suggestive. She knew exactly what Rosa was trying to get at, but that’s _not_ what she came to Cop-Con for. 

That’s _definitely_ not what she came to Cop-Con for. 

That’s what she kept telling herself, even as he was pressing her against the back of his hotel room door, fingers tangling in her hair while his other hand pulled her hips closer to him. She just kept repeating that thought, even as she welcomed his tongue into her mouth, tasted what appeared to be whipped cream flavored vodka (a questionable drink choice, but she wasn’t complaining). 

She _didn’t_ come for him. 

But she was absolutely planning to. 

She sighed softly into his mouth, earning a satisfied hum in response, both of them already working at each other’s buttons. She moved much more swiftly than him, and once he got half way done, he abandoned the buttons in favor of sliding his hands underneath her shirt. His hands felt warm as they grazed against her ribs, and it wasn’t long before he was reaching around her to unclasp that frustrating fabric. He pulled his hands away long enough to guide his shirt the rest of the way off, giving her enough time to pull her straps off of her arms and toss the bra to the floor. 

He groaned as she pulled him back down to meet her in a kiss, repeating the sound when she bit down on his bottom lip. He dipped his head down in retaliation, trailing wet kisses from her jaw, down her neck, and ultimately focusing on her chest. Her fingers locked into his hair, back arching to meet him halfway as his tongue darted across her sensitive skin. He quickly unbuttoned the rest of her shirt, helping her to pull it off before his hands replaced his mouth. 

She whimpered softly, hips drawing closer to him with every movement, every flick of his tongue on its way back up to her lips. She untangled her fingers from his short hair, moving them down to trace down his chest until she was toying with the button on his jeans, smiling against his lips at the sound building in the back of his throat. She’d felt him pressed hard against her thigh, and now she was running her palm over denim, laughing softly as he whined, keeping his eyes on her despite the disoriented look in his eyes. 

He leaned down and lifted her onto his hips, returning his lips to hers as he walked her to the bed. She adjusted her hips, achieving a collective sigh when she found some friction there. He pressed her down into the bed, and she was sure from his soft inhale that she’d surprised them both with how quickly she’d unbuttoned his jeans. 

After a quick lapse, he was kissing her again. She was tugging impatiently at his jeans until he broke the kiss to laugh. He helped her pull them down his hips before he kicked them to the floor unceremoniously. Before he had the opportunity to start laughing again, she had her fingers wrapped around him, coaxing his eyes shut tightly. 

After what _she_ would’ve described as some light teasing, he pulled back to kneel in front of her on the bed. He gripped the button on her jeans, and she sensed some of his trepidation. Her lips pulled into a smirk as she pushed his hand out of the way, unbuttoning her jeans herself and sliding them off of her legs. 

He shook his head, looking her over. “You are _so hot_ ,” he whispered appreciatively, leaning back over her and tangling his fingers in her hair as he kissed her. She shrugged him away, busying her hands below his waistband and hoping he would follow her lead. 

He mumbled a halfhearted plea for patience, then tugged her panties down her thighs, snaking his fingers between them and falling into a rhythm that was more perfect for her than she ever would have admitted, though he didn’t really need that confession to know that he was doing everything right. He had been more vocal than her since they’d stumbled into the room together, but now his focus left him nearly silent while his efforts had her humming and sighing around whispered _fucks_ until she’d lost track of what she was doing altogether, fingers clutching desperately at his chest as she trembled around him. 

When she opened her eyes, he was licking his fingers clean, eyebrows raised as if he had been caught doing something he shouldn’t have been doing. He flashed her a quick smile, then laughed softly. “I didn’t think that would be so easy.” 

She scoffed, moderately turned on by the way this near-stranger had _her taste_ on his lips. That was the great thing about one-night-stands. She didn’t have to care if he thought it was weird that she wanted to share that taste with him. The thought didn’t even occur to her as she pushed him back against the bed. “You’re lucky I’m not done with you yet.” 

He laughed again, louder this time. “Was that a threat? Because I might be into that.” 

She raked her fingers through his hair as she kissed him, shifting until he was laying back against the bed, her hips grinding hard against his. He whined when she pushed herself back up and held his eye contact for a moment. “Do you have condoms?” 

He scoffed. “Why would I bring condoms to _cop con?_ This is a work-sponsored event,” he teased, grinning at her as he shifted to let his tongue explore her chest. He attempted to move around her to stand up, but she pushed him back against the bed again. He swallowed thickly, voice raspy when he spoke. “Side pocket on the duffel bag.” 

She already had it unwrapped when she returned to the bed, and he groaned when she pumped him in her hand a few times before rolling it onto him, adjusting as necessary. 

He was looking at her with undeniable desire, and she was sure that her expression greatly resembled his, but he grabbed softly at her thigh anyways, preventing her from straddling his hips. “Hey, are you sure?” 

“I haven’t had a single drink tonight,” she reminded him, trying to ignore the strange mixture of feelings she felt at the gesture. “I’m sure.”

He laughed. “Oh, so _you’re_ taking advantage of _me_ , I see how it is.” 

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Do you want me to stop?” 

“Absolutely not,” he replied quickly, pulling his hand away from her thigh as if he had been burned. 

She moved to straddle his hips, voice teasing as she hovered over him. “Because I can stop, if you want me to.” 

She positioned him, taking extra care to drag him against her slowly, pulling a groan out of him. “Don’t stop,” he whispered. 

She repeated the motion, smirking at him as his eyes fluttered shut. “What do you want?” 

“I want you to fuck me,” he replied automatically, eyes trained back on her, hands sliding from her hips up to her ribs and back. She looked expectantly at him. “Please–” 

His words were lost as she lowered herself down on him at that moment, unconcerned about the gentle moans that escaped her own lips at the sensation. She quickly worked her hips into a rhythm, hands pressed against his chest for leverage. His head was tipped back, stealing glances at her as often as he could manage before his eyes slid shut again. His grip on her waist tightened and loosened, sometimes pulling her down with a little more force than she was using. Each time he did it, she wished she’d had the foresight to ask his name. She was sure that whatever it was, it would’ve sounded _great_ in that moment. 

After a moment, he adjusted so that he was pressing her back against the bed again. He drew his hips forward, pushing her further into the mattress with each movement. She hadn’t realized how much she had been missing his lips until they were on hers again, gentle, but strong. He whimpered against her lips as she rocked against him, arching her back to give him a better angle. 

He pushed her hair out of her face, cradling her jaw as he kissed her. It was a move that felt all too intimate, even given their current state, and she only had one idea on how to make the move away from the intimacy that she was _not_ seeking in this interaction. 

She turned her head to break the kiss, gasping out a soft, breathy, “ _Harder._ ” 

He groaned quietly, a reflex before he obliged her request, hands on her hips to pull himself to her harder, faster. She repeated the word until she was gripping onto him harder, her words getting lost in shaky sighs as his movements became more erratic. A few moments later, his face was in her neck, sighing along with her around kisses. They were kissing again as his hips drove forward the last few times, slow and sure and encouraging the soft moan that left her lips, his pulling into a self-satisfied smile in response. 

It occurred to her in a different way, as he resumed kissing her once he’d disposed of the condom, that this was _not_ what she came here for. This was _not_ one-night-stand sex, at least she didn’t _think_ it was. It’s not like she had a ton of experience with it, but gentle kisses and holding her face and the way he pulled the sheets onto them, tracing shapes onto her lower back with his fingertips. The way he was looking at her with an expression she couldn’t quite place, but she could easily tell that it was not appropriate for someone who should want her to promptly go back to her own room. Was it adoration?

But that couldn’t be right, because they’d just met each other and they didn’t even know the other’s name. It was an expression brought about by the _very_ personal thing they’d just done together, not by anything else. But when he reached up and tucked her hair behind her ear, she couldn’t stay quiet anymore. 

“What are you _doing_?” 

He laughed. “This is the Jake Peralta experience. That’s my name, by the way, since you never asked.” He raised his eyebrows, seemingly waiting for her to return the favor and tell him her name. 

She nodded, then pulled out of his arms. He sat up on the bed, sheet draped around his waist, and she only glanced at the hair dusting his chest for a second before her eyes snapped back up to his face. He watched her silently as she collected her clothes from around the room. She pulled her jeans onto her legs first, then clasped her bra behind her back before she turned back to face him. 

“It’s getting late, and I have that early seminar…” She trailed off, working on quickly fastening the buttons on her blouse. 

He hummed understandingly. When she looked at him, it looked like he had something to say, but he just closed his mouth and watched her. She was grateful that he was aware enough to not suggest that she stay in his room, a suggestion that would’ve made this more uncomfortable for both of them. 

She smiled halfheartedly, shrugging her shoulders as she walked toward the door. “This was… fun.” 

He nodded. “Mhm.” 

She felt a little bad. She wasn’t sure how people did this sort of thing all the time, and she was making a mental note that maybe this _wasn’t_ her thing after all. She had her hand on the doorknob when he finally spoke. 

“Wait–” she turned to look back at him, hand still on the doorknob. “What’s your name?” 

She smiled at him in a way that she hoped came off as playful, then she turned and walked out the door wordlessly. On the other side of the door, she took a deep breath, running her hand through her hair. This was _not_ how she thought this weekend was going to go and–

 _Fuck_. 

Her panties were on his floor. And she couldn’t go back and get them now, after she’d just fucked him and walked out of his room without even telling him her name. She closed her eyes as she made a break for the elevator. 

She _loved_ Cop-Con. But something had her feeling like she’d just made a mistake. She came here to be a professional, to interact with colleagues that she didn’t have the opportunity to see often. When she said interact, she meant _talk to_. 

She definitely interacted with Jake Peralta.

—

Jake was standing in the lobby looking around. There was one person he was looking for––well, really two people, if you counted the stranger who’d suggested that they go back to his room last night, only for her to leave in the least graceful way imaginable immediately after they had sex. The other person, the person he was _really_ looking for, was Rosa. 

He’d seen the mystery girl with Rosa earlier in the day yesterday, and he assumed they were from the same precinct. He wasn’t sure what precinct Rosa was with, because she was scary and private, but he was sure that she at least knew the woman’s name. So he waited in the lounge, ignoring his urge to play with the weapons displays, and watched for her. 

After twenty minutes that felt more like four hours, he smiled as he saw a tall woman with dark curls step into the lobby. 

“Rosa!” 

She turned to look at him, her resting expression quickly moving to a knowing smirk. “Jake. You have a good night? You looked a little on the not-sober side yesterday.” 

He raised his eyebrows as he walked toward her. “That’s one way to put it. Surprisingly the hangover is only at about a four, so I call that a win.” 

She raised her eyebrows to match his expression. “I saw you leave with Santiago last night.”

 _Santiago._

“Uh… yeah,” he rubbed at the corner of his mouth quickly, trying to stifle the smile that was threatening to make itself known. “That’s actually why I was looking for you. Have you seen her?” 

“Amy? No, she didn’t stay with you?”

He laughed quietly. “No, she made a break for it immediately after–” he paused, blinking at Rosa. 

“Just say ‘sexy timez,’” Rosa added with an eye roll. 

“Sexy timez,” he mumbled. 

Rosa laughed too. “I can’t believe she had a one night stand. With _you_.” 

Jake crossed his arms in mock offense. “What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“Nothing.” Rosa shrugged. “Look, you were my partner in the academy, and she’s been my partner since we made detective. I know you both pretty well. You’re just _very_ different people.” 

“I just wanted to talk to her before we all left,” Jake continued. 

Rosa looked down at her watch. “Oh yeah, she had that handshake seminar thing at nine. You had to RSVP to get in, but we both know that doesn’t mean anything to you.” 

He smirked proudly, turning toward a sign that had all the times and locations for presentations on it. “Thanks, Diaz.” 

Rosa elbowed him as she moved to step past. “Don’t annoy her too much. I’m gonna have to listen to her on the drive home.” 

He laughed and gave her a quick wave before he made his way down the correct hallway, toward the handshake seminar. It was already 9:15, and he expected the door to be locked, but it wasn’t. When he stepped in silently, he went unnoticed. The room was practically full, but he spotted a few empty spots at the front. 

_Great_. He’d have to walk all the way to the front, which meant that he’d _definitely_ be noticed. 

Although… 

If Amy Santiago was the opposite of him, just like Rosa had said, that probably meant she was sitting toward the front anyway. He shrugged and tried to make his way to the front of the dark auditorium as inconspicuously as possible. When he got there, he found that Rosa was absolutely right. One of the empty seats he had spotted from the back was directly next to none other than the mystery woman herself, Amy Santiago. 

He sat down next to her wordlessly, laughing quietly as she turned to look at the person sitting next to her, turned her head back toward the front, then quickly snapped her head back toward him as realization dawned on her. 

“What are you doing here?” She whispered. 

He shushed her, keeping his focus on the speaker. 

“Peralta,” she whispered more sternly. 

He turned to look at her. “Awh, you remembered.”

“ _What_ are you doing here?” 

“I’m _trying_ to hear a seminar on how to get a better handshake. What are you doing here?” 

She rolled her eyes and he laughed again. 

“Who tries to have a one night stand with someone they know is going to be in the same place as them the next day?” 

“I didn’t know you were going to be here,” she replied matter of factly. 

He stared at her, gesturing around them. “You didn’t know I was going to be here, but you knew I was going to be _here_. Cop-Con.” 

She groaned quietly. The person on her left shushed her, causing Jake to cover his mouth to hide his laughter. “Oh my god. Come on,” she hissed, grabbing his wrist and pulling him with her out of the auditorium. 

He laughed louder once they made it back to the lobby. “Amy, you’re gonna miss your seminar.”

“I’ve already been to a firm handshake seminar,” she replied with a scoff. She scrunched her eyebrows up as she replayed his words in her head. “How do you know my name?” 

“Rosa mentioned it.” 

“You know Rosa?” 

He nodded quickly. “Yeah, she was my partner in the academy.” He answered her question with a dismissive wave, shooting back a question of his own. “You already went to a firm handshake seminar? And you chose to miss the Buffalo PD party and get up early to go to _another one_?”

“It was a different speaker,” Amy defended herself firmly, but he caught the pink tint on her cheeks. “What do you want?” 

He shrugged. “I thought maybe we could talk before we leave.” 

She sighed. “Jake, isn’t this the opposite of what a one night stand is supposed to be?” 

He tilted his head to the side. “ _Yeaaaah,_ but I thought maybe it would be cool if we could be friends or–”

She put her hands up, stopping him. “We’re not going to be friends.” He raised an eyebrow at her, and she continued. “What kind of friendship starts with ‘oh yeah, we met at a party and fucked. Now we’re _best_ friends.’”

He laughed. “Woah, Santiago. _Language!_ ” She rolled her eyes as he laughed. “I never said anything about _best_ friends.” She rolled her eyes again and turned to walk away. “Wait, c’mon. I’m just saying, I don’t plan on leaving the NYPD anytime soon, do you?” 

“No, but I don’t see what that has to do with anything.” 

“I’ve seen you around at NYPD events before this, and I assume we’re going to bump into each other again after this. We might as well be friends, so it isn’t awkward.” 

She shook her head. “It doesn’t have to be awkward. We just don’t talk.” 

He rolled his eyes. “You’re impossible.” 

She sighed. “Look, we had sex _once_. That can just be all it is.”

“That’s exactly what I’m trying to say,” he continued. “We can be friends, last night didn’t mean anything.”

“It didn’t mean anything to me, either.” 

“Great, then we’re on the same page–”

“No, we’re _not_ on the same page, because you want to be friends and I don’t think we need to be.” 

“Alright, fine. You’re right, we’ll probably only see each other a couple times a year anyway. I work at the nine-nine, and obviously I don’t–”

“You work at the nine-nine?” Amy interrupted, her interest clearly piqued. 

He raised an eyebrow, speaking slowly. “Yeah… Why?”

“Raymond Holt is your captain?” 

Jake nodded slowly, and she opened her mouth to speak, a sort of light in her eyes that he hadn’t previously noticed. But then she clamped her mouth back shut and shook her head. “That’s cool. Anyways, I’ll see you around.” 

“Uh… Yeah, okay. See you around, Santiago.” 

He watched as she walked away, shaking his head to himself. She was probably right. They might not even see each other again. Why force a friendship? She might not even be from around Brooklyn. 

He shrugged as he headed back up to his room to collect his things. At least Cop Con wasn’t a _complete_ bust.

Buffalo PD had thrown better parties in previous years, but this one had been pretty good. He had fun. He made fifty bucks off of that bet with Charles, he got to try out some pretty cool things at the weapons exhibit. 

He reached down to pick up his phone charger, tossed to the floor after he’d accidentally tugged it out of the wall that morning. That’s when he saw them. 

A pair of lacy, black underwear. The same pair that he’d tugged off of Amy Santiago’s hips, that she’d kicked to the floor as she settled on his hips the night before. He shook the image of her, hands tangled in her hair as she rolled her hips to meet him, out of his head. 

He stared at them for a moment, unsure of _what_ to do with them. He wasn’t going to see her again, at least not outside of a work event… So it’s not like he could return them to her with no phone number. He shook his head again, images returning to his awareness. It would be a shame for her to lose half of that set. 

He sighed heavily, grabbing them and tossing them into his suitcase. He’d just throw them away or something, he didn’t want whatever housekeeper that had to tend to this room when he left to have to find someone’s underwear. He figured that was something that happened semi-often, and if he could be the reason somebody didn’t have to touch a stranger’s underwear, he was doing his part for the day in making the world a better place.

“You ready?” Charles asked from outside his door, knocking lightly. 

“Coming!” Jake replied, tugging the zipper shut on his suitcase. 

And so the countdown to next Cop Con begins...


	2. my favorite one night stand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> the one where amy becomes one of those girls in jake's car oooooOOOOO
> 
> do not do things like this in the car while driving kiddos this is not safe okie dokie 
> 
> title from La La by the Cab. 
> 
> _And there's nothing I can do,_  
>  _I just gravitate toward you._  
>  _You're pulling on me like the moon,_  
>  _I just wanna get you sideways,_  
>  _I'll say anything I can_  
>  _To give me more than just a dance._  
>  _Tell me where to put my hands,_  
>  _You know that you could be my favorite one night stand._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> also hi i finally made a tumblr for fic stuff but haven't posted a single thing on it yet because i forgot how to use tumblr. anywayssss, tumblr is the same as my twitter: @conner4realsies
> 
> so if you wanna check that out or give ya girl a tutorial on how to be a functional fic author in relation to tumblr, I'm open to any and all input. ¨̮ ¨̮ ¨̮

Amy rolled her eyes as Rosa glanced at her fifth drink. 

“Are you sure you wanna drink that right now?” 

Amy rolled her eyes again, opting to sip on her straw instead of actually answering Rosa. She was exhausted from all the dancing she had just been doing, and she could have a fifth drink, she would be _fine_. 

“It’s just that you _just_ finished your fourth drink…” She rolled her eyes when Amy didn’t even look at her, eyes focused on someone a few tables over. “Why don’t you just go talk to him?” 

“I don’t _want_ to go talk to him.” 

This time, Rosa rolled her eyes. “You’ve been staring at him all night.” 

“Well, I thought maybe he’d come talk to me.” 

“You told him not to talk to you, Santiago. What do you want from the guy?” 

Amy huffed quietly and resorted back to taking another sip.

––

“I don’t know. I’m not gonna go talk to her, that’s for sure.” 

Charles stared at him in disbelief. “Jake, you’re in _love with each other_. Go to her.” 

Jake scoffed. “I’m not in love with her. And she’s _definitely_ not in love with me. She didn’t even want to be friends.” 

Charles laughed quietly. “Yeah, but that’s only because she’s trying to deny her feelings. It’s harder to deny your feelings for someone when you’re friends.” 

Jake shook his head. “We had sex _one_ time, Boyle. It’s not–”

“You had _sex_ with her?! Oh my _god_ –”

Jake shushed him, turning to catch a glimpse at Amy in hopes that she hadn’t heard Boyle’s outburst. She wasn’t looking in his direction, so he figured he was safe. “Be quiet, Charles.” 

“I was just talking about that night at Cop-Con, with the peanut! I didn’t know you made love to her!” 

Jake groaned, tipping his head back and slumping into his chair. “I need a drink if you’re gonna keep talking about this.”

“Go talk to her before I lose my _fucking_ mind,” Rosa snapped as she sat down at Jake’s table. He sat back up in his chair.

Charles looked at Rosa with raised eyebrows. Jake laughed quietly. “Hi, Diaz.” 

“Peralta. Talk to her.” 

“That’s what I’ve been saying!” Charles exclaimed. “I’m Charles Boyle, by the way.” He extended his hand toward her. 

Rosa stared at him for a moment, completely ignoring his hand as she turned back to Jake. “Is there a reason that you aren’t on your way to go talk to her, yet?” 

Jake took a deep breath. “Yeah. She was pretty clear the last time we spoke that we weren’t friends and that I didn’t need to talk to her if we ever ran into each other. So I’m not going to talk to her.” 

Rosa nodded calmly, then picked up the fork in front of her. “If you don’t get up right now, I will stab you in the leg with this fork. _Go talk to her._ ” 

Jake made a sound of protest, but stood and made his way away from the table. He crossed his arms and glared at Rosa from a few feet away, but when she threateningly held up the fork, he walked toward Amy. 

“Santiago? Is that you?” He asked stupidly as he slid into the chair next to her. “Crazy seeing you here! Of all the NYPD Christmas parties in all the world, you had to walk into mine.” 

She had the hint of a smile on her lips, but she was trying her hardest to look unamused. “Peralta. How are you?” 

He leaned on the table, propping his chin up on his elbow. “I’m doing great! I mean, I’m single during the holidays and my dad recently used me to get out of trouble with the Canadian police, so… Things are going about as they usually do.”

She pressed her lips together, trying to prevent the little smirk that was trying to make itself present. 

He eyed her suspiciously. “What?”

“Nothing,” she paused to take a sip of her drink, “that was just a nice way to casually drop that you’re single, is all.” She looked at him seriously.

He laughed, shaking his head. “I’m just saying the holidays suck, _is all_ ,” he mimicked her. 

“Yeah, sure. You know, I get it, Jake. We have, like, mindblowing sex _one time_ and you just can’t get enough.”

“I never said it was–” He stopped when she started laughing. “Are you teasing me?”

She shrugged. “I mean, being single can be boring. I have to find _some_ way to have fun, right?” 

He laughed, turning to face her more fully. “I see what you did there. Also, good to know that you thought sex with me was _mindblowing_.”

She shoved his shoulder playfully. “Oh my god, I was making fun of _you_.”

He nodded, slowly taking her glass from her hands and raising it to his lips to take a sip. Her eyes followed the movements closely. “Mmhmmm,” he hummed, raising his eyebrows at her. “You know, Ames. If you wanted to get me back in bed, all you had to do was ask.” 

The joking air between them evaporated quickly as her eyes flickered over his face. “Do you wanna get out of here?” 

He blinked wildly at her. “What?” 

“Oh my god,” she whispered. “You were joking?”

“Yeah––I mean… No, but––” She shook her head, pushing herself away from the table and quickly making her way toward the door. “Amy, wait!”

He took off after her, just barely catching her wrist before she made it out of the room. “Wait, can we talk for a minute?”

She turned to face him, but just as she was about to speak, someone shouted at them from the side of the room. “Mistletoe!”

They both turned to look at the offender, confused and not even fully aware of what the man had yelled. By the time they located him, he was garnering a crowd. They were all chanting _mis-tle-toe, mis-tle-toe, mis-tle-toe._ Charles, Rosa, and Gina all joined the crowd, though Charles was the only one who joined in the chanting. 

Jake and Amy both looked above them at the mistletoe hanging directly above their heads. He looked at her and shrugged, then leaned in and gave her a quick peck on the lips. 

“ _Boooo_ ,” the man shouted, a sentiment that was quickly echoed by others, and Amy was surprised that a room full of her fellow police officers could be filled with so many immature people.

“Rosa and Gina kissed better than that when they were under the mistletoe!” Charles yelled to Jake, glancing in moderate terror as Rosa glared at him. 

Amy rolled her eyes, grabbing Jake by the tie and tugging him to her so she could kiss him _properly_. She kept his tie wrapped around her hand, keeping him in place as her other hand threaded through his hair. After a brief moment of surprise, his hands found her hips, quickly sliding up so they were in the middle of her back, pulling her closer to him. Their tongues moved together expertly, and she sucked his bottom lip into her mouth, biting at it softly and pulling an obscene little whine out of him before she released him, turning to roll her eyes at the cheering crowd.

When she looked back at Jake, that same dazed expression from that night in the hotel was in his eyes. Maybe it was the alcohol in her system, or maybe it was just that look that she wanted to replicate in as many ways as possible, but she wanted nothing more than to follow up with exactly the same kind of _mindblowing_ sex that he showed her last time. 

She took his hand and pulled him out of the room, the cheers only intensifying as they walked away. Then everything was moving so _fast_. Against the outside of the building, her dress riding up her thigh as she hooked her leg around his, the warmth of his hand as he surveyed the newly exposed skin, whispered that _someone could see them, they shouldn’t be doing this here_. She waved off all his concerns until he made a very good point: _What if the commissioner comes out here?_

Against the side of his car, grinning as he fumbled for his keys. Her kisses planted down his throat, her hands demanding more of him as they slid down his chest, intent on unbuckling his belt. The look in his eyes when she opened the back door instead of the passenger side. He was the more sober of the two, but also the more suggestible, and if you had seen that look in her eyes…

He shook his head, staring up at the sky with a silent plea of _helping him get through this_ , but as he slid into the driver’s seat, he realized that _clearly_ nobody had been listening. His name rolled off of her tongue so easily, like honey dripping from her lips that he wanted so desperately to taste. His restraint was tested once again when he glanced into the rearview mirror, finding Amy’s head tipped to the side, her dress pulled down so her breasts were spilling over the fabric.

He groaned softly. “C’mon, Ames, what are you doing to me?” He whined as she met his eye contact in the mirror with her own intense eyes.

She blinked a few times, playing obviously with her breasts as she spoke to him, breathy and innocent. “What’s wrong, Jake? You don’t want me to sit in the back seat?”

He leaned his head back against the seat, staring up at the ceiling. “You’re gonna kill me.” 

“Hold on, I’ll come up there,” she offered, gripping his shoulder as she squirmed past him, over the center console, rolling unceremoniously into the passenger seat with a giggle. 

He kept his head leaned against his head rest, but turned to smile at her again. “Great, now we just have to get you covered up and we’ll be getting somewhere.” 

“Oh, you want me covered up?” She asked, smirking at the way his eyes were obviously drawn to her chest. She reached over and took his hands, pulling them onto her chest and arching toward him. He groaned through gritted teeth, and the rough quality of his voice would have been enough to get her all worked up for him if she hadn’t already been. 

He shook his head, uttering a soft, “ _Fuck_ ” as he twisted at her nipples gently. Her chest heaved as she breathed his name again and for a moment, it didn’t even matter that they were outside of a building full of more superior officers than he could count. She looked so _inviting_ , and before he knew it, judgement aside, his face was buried in her chest, all lips and tongue and teeth as he coaxed sounds out of her that he hoped he would never forget. 

His breath hitched as she palmed his erection through his pants, and he didn’t stop her when she reached for his belt. It wasn’t until he heard a voice from a short distance away that he snapped back to reality. He quickly pulled her top up so that she was covered, peering through the window at Charles walking right over to where he knew Jake’s car was. 

“Put on your seatbelt,” he directed quietly, not taking the time to fix his belt or his pants before tossing his own seatbelt on. He reversed out of his parking spot, deciding not to check the rearview mirror as he pulled away. Charles drove to the event by himself, but Jake knew he’d check the car to see if he was still in it. 

Amy whined in the passenger seat. “You’re no fun.” 

He glanced at her, laughing at her grumpy face and crossed arms. “I didn’t figure you wanted Charles to walk over and see what was just happening. Or anyone else, for that matter.” 

“I just want you to touch me,” she spoke softly, tantalizingly. When he glanced back over at her, she was tugging her top back down.

He swallowed hard. “My place or yours?” 

“Right here,” she specified, and he wasn’t quite sure if she was talking about _right here_ in the car or _right here_ as in that spot on her inner thigh where her hand was sliding up, tearing his eyes away from the road. “I want you to fuck me in your back seat, Jake.”

His breath hitched again, from the confession or his name sounding so dirty on her tongue or, god, he wasn’t sure what it was but he wanted her and he couldn’t drive fast enough to a destination that he wasn’t even sure about. “My place or yours?” He repeated.

“You don’t even have to do anything. I’ll do all the work.” She moved closer, dipping her hand back into his unbuttoned pants. Was he glad that he didn’t take the time to fix them? Or was he––oh, fuck, yeah, he was glad.

“Ames…” His voice was breathy as he glanced over at her. Another quiet groan slipped out of him as she pulled him out of his pants fully, giving herself more room to pump him in her hand. He looked back at the road, eyebrows pulled together in concentration and a grip so hard that he wouldn’t be surprised if he broke the steering wheel. 

“Just pull over, Jake.” Her voice was low, commanding. She knew exactly what she was doing. “Find an empty parking lot. We’ll slide your seat back and I’ll ride you right here.”

His hand moved to her wrist, holding her in place as he tried to breathe through what she’d just said to him. 

“Tell me to stop,” she practically whispered, and though he knew she’d stop if he asked her to, they both knew she was daring him. “Tell me you don’t want this and it’s done.” 

He looked at her for a moment, then released her wrist, moving back to hold onto the steering wheel. She began slowly twisting her wrist again and he wanted so badly to close his eyes, to lean into her touch and just feel everything she was doing to him. “That’s what I thought.” 

“There are cameras,” he finally said, driving way slower than he needed to on the empty road they were on. 

“What?” 

“There are cameras. We can’t do a parking lot, or a––” He cut off when she adjusted, pulling the top of her seatbelt behind her as she twisted to move her face closer to his lap. 

“Keep talking,” she directed. 

He exhaled a shaky breath, her head in his lap but her hand still stroking him as if nothing had changed. “Uhm… We, I––uh, wanted to know if we should––” His words stopped abruptly as she wrapped her tongue around him, sliding him fully into her mouth one time, two times, _three times_ before she stopped, waiting for him to continue talking. 

“Mmmm––my place or–– _fuck_ ––yours?”

“Corner of Flatbush and Pacific.”

He watched the road through narrowed eyes, working overtime to make sure he didn’t stray from his lane at all. 

“Okay, Ames, _Ames_ ,” he abruptly said, deciding that he needed at least a little bit more focus to find his way to her apartment in the dark. She slid him out of her mouth with a _pop_ , and he glanced over at her, her lips glistening in the moonlight. 

He turned his eyes on the road as he moved his hand over to her side of the car. Within minutes, her panties were on the floor, her dress hiked up over her hips as he teased her. His slow, calculated movements had her chest heaving, skittering breath fogging up her window as she leaned against the cool glass. She had thought that one calloused finger on her clit was distracting, but then he was pumping one finger into her, then two, then _three_ , tracing her clit with his thumb and _fuck_ , all at once, it was too much.

“Jake, _fuck_ , Jake, I’m gonna––” she stopped on a shaky breath, a soft moan escaping her lips as he increased his speed, encouraging her.

“You’re gonna what?” He asked, continuing his efforts with just as much concentration as before. He twisted his wrist, gaining an angle that left her making little sounds with each movement. “You gonna come for me? Make you feel so good you’re gonna come for me right here?”

“Jake––”

“Say it.” He kept going, relishing in every little sound she made for him. “Say it for me, Ames.”

“I’m gonna, _oh fuck_ , I’m gonna come for you––I’m gonna come for you, Jake, I’m––”

Her words got lost as they melted into moans and whimpers, shaky sighs and whispered curse words that had never sounded so pretty on anyone else’s tongue. She leaned her head against the window, soft sounds involuntarily leaving her lips as he teased her, the softest touches on the most sensitive skin.

He was taken completely by surprise when he moved to pull his hand away. She grabbed his wrist before he could get away. She raised his hand to her mouth, slowly licking across his fingers before she slid them into her mouth. 

It took all of his focus not to take all of his focus off of the road. He groaned, low and hard, shaking his head to try and fight off the wave of desire that had him contemplating putting his car in park in the middle of the road, pulling her into the backseat and fucking her until he got to hear her make those sounds again. _Fuck_ , he’d do anything to hear her say his name again.

“Jake,” she whimpered softly. She was reading his mind, and he was going to crash the car if she didn’t stop touching him like that but _god_ , please don’t let her stop touching him like that. He was trying to keep it together enough to remember to breathe and to keep his eyes open, but he was getting closer to losing that battle with each passing second.

“I can’t wait to get you home,” he looked at her, trying to remind both of them that they _were_ going to her apartment––they should cool it in the car. But when he saw her, he’d never felt less cool in his life. Her hand was already busy in his lap, already making it even more difficult for him to concentrate, but when he saw her… She was in the passenger seat, turned toward him. Her left leg was bent, leaning against the back of her seat. Her right leg was hanging off of the seat, her high heel planted firmly on the floor. Her hand snaked between her legs, which were completely open to him, while the fingers on her other hand wrapped firmly around his cock. 

He exhaled, long and slow, fairly certain that there was not enough blood in his brain for him to be driving at all, but he flipped on the turn signal for the final turn. “Which apartment is you?” 

She gestured to the parking spot he should take, then began pulling her dress into place. She whined quietly next to him. “I wasn’t done teasing you.”

He put the car in park, immediately clicking his seatbelt off and adjusting his pants so he could get out of the car. “Who said you had to stop?” 

He exited the car quickly, running over to her side to open the door for her. She stayed close to his side as he shut it, so it was easy enough for him to push her back against the car. His fingers knotted into her hair, relishing in the opportunity to finally kiss her the way he wanted to. Rough, after all the relentless teasing. He tipped her head back gently with the fingers rooted in her hair, leaving her gasping against his ear as his fingers slipped back under her dress, hidden from the world by his body. He spent a moment looking into her eyes, pupils blown wide in the dim light. She was biting her lip, and he watched as her lips parted, eyes slipping shut as he touched her. 

“Jake,” she whispered, half frantic and full of desperation. She planted her hand firmly on his chest, and she didn’t need to finish the thought because he was already one step ahead of her. He took a step back, hands reaching for her hips, but she had his hand before he even made it there. She turned toward her door, pulling him behind her. 

They didn’t make it out of the living room. 

She stumbled out of her shoes as they stepped through the door, laughing into his neck while he shrugged off his suit jacket, unbuttoning his shirt as quickly as he could. He stopped with a few buttons left, hands intent on threading her zipper down her back. She picked up where he left off with his buttons, humming happily as he trailed open-mouth kisses down her neck. 

It was all so fast-paced, fingers knotting into hair, nails on skin, pulling one another closer from any point of contact. Their clothes were strewn across the living room by the time they were undressed, frantic in their race for more of each other. They’d stopped all across the apartment, gripping thighs hard enough to leave bruises, leaving bite marks on shoulders. On the couch, her thighs quivering around his head, fingers locked into his hair as his tongue swirled across her. He eagerly nursed her desire, fingers pumping into her until she was crying out his name, still trembling as her thighs relaxed on either of his shoulders. 

He looked up at her, eyes dark with lust, and she was pulling him back in for more. She climbed down onto him, and they clumsily tipped backward as they kissed. She giggled against his lips and he laughed with her, laughter fading into a groan as she let her hand slide down his body. He’d already lost all composure by the time she started kissing down his chest. She took him into her mouth slowly, his fingers tangling loosely in her hair as he worked to keep his hips in place. 

He arched toward her, fingers tightening. His consistent little chant, _fuck_ , said under his breath, over and over until his words began running together. “Ames, you gotta––” He trailed off, trying to manage a breath. “If we don’t stop…” 

She looked up at him, stroking him gently and giggling when he tipped his head back with a frustrated groan. “What’ll happen if we don’t stop?” 

He looked over at her again, ruffling his fingers through his hair. “Well, you see, Santiago. When two adults really like each other—“

She interrupted, “Interesting that you’re making jokes when I _literally_ hold the outcome of this situation in my hands…” She blinked at him obviously, her voice teasing. “If we don’t stop, you’re gonna come? And you’re not ready for that, right?” She quickened her pace for a moment, and a breathy moan escaped his lips. “Make another joke, Jake. I dare you.”

He shook his head, jaw clenched tight. “I think that was supposed to scare me, but you’re just turning me on more.” 

She laced her fingers with his, looking over her shoulder at him as she stood, pulling him up to follow her. 

Eleven steps. That’s how far they made it before she was leaned against his body, her face tipped toward his as he kissed her. She leaned forward against the kitchen counter, pushing closer to grind against him. He kept a hand on her hip, unwilling to let her go as he turned, searching for his jacket across the room littered with their clothes. 

“Condoms,” he murmured when she pushed closer to him again. 

“On the pill––I’m good if you are?” She glanced back at him, grinning when he poked his tongue into the inside of his cheek. 

He laughed softly. “Oh, I’m good.”

Against the counter, on the center island. A plea to take it to the bedroom actually brought them to the hallway, her back leaning against the wall as he balanced her on his hips, slow and sure with each movement. Finally in her bedroom, cool air tingling against damp skin, burning everywhere her fingers touched. 

He’d gone so many days without even thinking about her, and now with her on his lap, he was sure that he’d never get her out of his head again. This image of her, head tipped back as her hips sank lower on him, over and over until she couldn’t take it anymore. She pulled him over the edge quickly with her, collapsing against his chest when they finished. 

He awoke with a start. That’s one way to phrase it. Another way to phrase it would be he woke up, panicked, when he was hit in the face with a pillow. _Hard._ He didn’t remember falling asleep, exactly. He remembered the end, the two of them finishing together, a blur of hands clutching closer, his breath falling fast around each utterance of her name. He remembered kisses pressed to salty skin, laughing together as they lay breathlessly in each other’s arms. Then he was jolting awake, attacked by a pillow. 

“What the fuck?” He asked as he scrambled into a sitting position, pulling the comforter with him as he moved. 

“What the fuck me?” She gestured between them. “What the fuck you! Why are you here?” She held her sheet underneath her arms, covering her body with it, but her shoulders were bare. 

“Well, I’m no scientist, but basic deductive reasoning skills explain pretty easily what I’m doing here.” She hit him with the pillow again. “Stop hitting me–”

“Why did I wake up with your arm around my waist?” 

“Probably because I fucked you three times last night,” he replied lazily, rubbing his eyes and leaning back against her headboard. His head rolled to the side as he looked at her matter-of-factly. She pulled her arm back to hit him with the pillow again. 

“Stop– _what?_ That’s what happened!”

“You’re not supposed to stay the night.” She groaned, laying back in the pillows dramatically. She covered her face with her hands. 

He stared at her. “I don’t see what the big deal is. It’s not like there are rules.”

“There are rules to everything,” she shot back, peering at him from between her fingers. “If we’re going to do this–”

“If we’re going to do this?” He repeated questioningly. 

“It’s just sex,” she looked up at him. “Just sex, no sleeping over.”

“I’m sorry, I’m not sure if I understand what’s happening right now.” 

She sighed, shaking her head to herself. “Would you be interested in setting up… an arrangement? For casual sex?” 

He cocked his head to the side, raising his eyebrows at her. “Like… friends with benefits?” 

“No,” she immediately corrected him. “Not friends. Just sex.” 

“So… just benefits?” 

“I swear to god, do I have to do everything myself–”

“Everything except orgasm, apparently…” He mumbled under his breath. 

Her jaw dropped as she turned to look at him. “Funny coming from the guy who had no control over the situation and fell asleep in _my_ bed.” She was raising her voice. 

“Oh, I had control!” He shouted back. “I even managed to use a fucking turn signal! With my _dick_ ,” he paused, enunciating the word way more than was necessary, “ in your mouth, Amy.” He took a deep breath. “Howthefuck was I supposed to gain control of _that?”_

They sat silently for a few moments. When he spoke again, he was calmer. “Besides, it’s not like you really had a handle on the situation.”

She sat up, facing him again. “I had a handle–”

“Yeah? Then why did I fall asleep in your bed last night? If you woke up with my arm around you this morning, that means you fell asleep right next to me.” He looked seriously at her as she scrambled for an answer that she didn’t have. 

“Do you want to do this or not?” She finally snapped. “Because if you don’t that’s fine–”

“Oh, no, I definitely do.” He replied, nodding. “Casual sex arrangement sounds great.”

“Great. We can talk about the rules–”

“Oh my god, you really have _rules?_ I thought casual sex was supposed to be fun.” 

“You know what…” She let the blanket fall away from her chest. His eyes immediately travelled there, looking like he wasn’t going to be listening to anything else she said. She extended her hand toward him. “Come get in the shower with me. We’ll discuss the rules when we’re done.”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “Yeah?” 

She raised her eyebrows back. “Yeah. C’mon.” 

––

Sex while they were both sober proved to be just as good as sex when they were not. Historically, Amy wasn’t always a huge fan of shower sex, but even that clumsy experience was better with him. She wasn’t apt to be his friend. From what she knew of him, he was immature. She had enough friends. But he _definitely_ knew how to use his body, and she definitely enjoyed benefitting from that. 

He was cute, she’d give it to him. The way his eyes flickered over her face questioningly, eyebrows raising slightly when she asked him to show her what he liked. He was hesitant, even after she tilted her head to the side, a teasing look in her eyes. She took his hand as she kissed him, wrapping it around his dick for him. He hummed into the kiss, eyes intent on hers when she pulled away. So he showed her, eyes slipping shut as he leaned against the wall, water streaming down his chest leading her to watch his every move. She could tell when he was close, his head tipping to the side, chest rising and falling more quickly than before. He looked at her, silently searching for her permission. She kissed his neck, biting down in the same spot that he’d responded well to the night before.

“Ames,” he cried out softly, his hand slowing to a crawl. It was a warning. _If we don’t stop now…_ She replaced his hand, resuming the same speed he’d been using previously. His hands fell against her hips lightly, tracing her skin underneath his fingers until his shaky breathing turned to a strangled groan at the back of his throat. His fingers tightened on her waist, his body tensing as he tipped over the edge, burying his final moan in her neck. “ _Fuuuck_ ,” he whispered, long and drawn out. 

His kisses started on her shoulder, teeth scraping skin as he bit down just hard enough to get her surprised little moan to trail into quiet laughter. Then he kissed up her neck, stopping to suck on that spot that made her squirm against him. His kisses slowed as his path brought him to her jaw, the place just under her ear. He laughed breathily against her ear, his fingers finding their way into her hair again as he made his way back past her jaw, onto her cheek. He pressed one kiss there, a second, then a third. Finally, he kissed the corner of her lips, her eyes intent on his the entire time. He pulled her closer to himself, pulling her in for a kiss that rivaled the one under the mistletoe from the night before. 

When he pulled away, smiling and breathless, she looked at him seriously. “Rule number one–”

“Oh my _god_ ,” he mumbled under his breath, turning her with him to rinse them both off. “You said when we were done. I didn’t even make you come yet.” 

“This one’s important.” He rolled his eyes and looked at her expectantly. “You can’t kiss me like that.” 

He made a face. “Like what?” 

“You know.” She rolled her eyes at him. When he stared at her, confusion written across his features, she sighed. She pulled on his fingers, looking shy as he got closer to her. She copied his movements, grinding a little closer to him as she sucked on his neck, then shifting into soft, gentle kisses trailed up his neck, across his jaw, on his cheek. She pressed a few gentle kisses onto his lips, then kissed her way to his ear. She bit his earlobe softly, laughing when the hand on the small of her back pulled her just a little closer. Finally, she whispered in his ear in the sexiest voice she could muster. “Like that.” 

He laughed uncomfortably, his voice seeming to be stuck in his throat when he tried to speak again. “I–” he cleared his throat. “What’s wrong with kisses like that?” 

“You’re kissing me like you _love me_.” She shifted, then looked down, surprised. “Oh my god, are you––” 

“I’m not––” He looked down, then back up at her frantically. “I don’t what’s happening––but I don’t _love you_.” 

“I know you don’t love me. So don’t kiss me like you do.” 

“ _That_ is not me kissing you like I love you. That’s just––I don’t know, it’s like… intimate?” 

“That’s what I’m saying.” She passed him the bottle of soap after getting some for herself, beginning to wash her body. “That’s not how someone you go home with from a bar to have sex with kisses you.”

“I’m not someone you went home from a bar with.” He began washing his body, too. “I’m me. And you _just_ made me come. I’m not a monster, Amy I have feelings..” He was teasing her now, his smile way too big for his words to be genuine. Or at least, smile too big for him to not be pretending his words weren’t genuine. She wasn’t sure which. “I get a little emotional. Some girls like that.” 

She rolled her eyes, shoving him lightly out of the stream of water. “Rule number one is no soft kisses. Got it?” 

“I’ll see what I can do.” She glared at him. “Listen, it’s not my fault you’re confusing affection for love.”

“Jake–”

“I’ll try, okay?” He leaned into her, a stupid smirk on his lips. “Starting tomorrow.” He kissed her on the tip of her nose. 

She pushed him away again, crossing her arms. He choked out another laugh. “Okay, I get it. No soft kisses. No physical affection _whatsoever_. I’ll fuck you without touching you at all. Anything else?” 

“Wash your hair,” she handed him the bottle of shampoo, choosing to ignore his snarky tone as she washed her own hair. “No sleeping over.”

“Cool, cool, cool. We already broke that rule, but okay.” 

She sighed. “Going forward, no sleeping over. I don’t know why I’m doing this with _you_.” 

He poked his tongue into the inside of his cheek. “I mean, I think I remember you referring to it as _mindblowing sex_... And you didn’t seem to think it was so bad last night, either.” 

She rolled her eyes, but she didn’t say anything. That’s exactly the reason she was doing it with him instead of finding someone else. She didn’t think there was any chance that they’d fall for each other, what with him essentially being an adult child and her being the equivalent of the teacher who probably put him in detention every day throughout high school. No risk. And the sex is _great_. 

“Is that all your rules?” He asked, pushing her playfully out of the way so that he could rinse his hair in an over dramatic fashion. “Because I have a couple of rules myself.” 

“ _You_ have rules?” 

“One rule.” He looked at her seriously. “No matter what happens, you’re not allowed to fall in love with me.” 

She raised her eyebrows at him, pushing him back. “Won’t be a problem.” 

They stayed in the shower until the hot water ran out, his kisses anything but soft for the remainder of the time. 

“So… Wanna stop and grab lunch on the way back to your car?” He asked as he pulled his pants on. 

She clasped her bra behind her back, perusing her closet for an appropriate blouse. “No. Meals together are like dates. Dates are not for casual sex.” 

“Ooookay,” he huffed quietly, buttoning up his white shirt most of the way. “I’ll just drop you off there, then.” 

“Do you have my phone number?” She asked, pulling her own top over her head, then pulling on a pair of jeans. 

He shook his head, then pulled out his phone. She gave him the number, then waited while he texted her. 

**Unknown Number:** hey fuck buddy <3

She looked up at him, eyebrows drawn together. “Not buddies.” 

“Mhmm,” he agreed, laughing at her annoyed expression. “Just text me when you need me, I guess.” 

“You ready?” She ignored his smug look, pulling her jacket on and sliding on the shoes by the door. 

“You see my shoes anywhere?” He asked, peering around the living room. 

Amy looked around. “Did you… wear shoes?”

He made a face at her. “Did I wear shoes? To the Christmas party? In December?” He scoffed quietly. “I can’t figure you out, Amy Santiago.” 

“What is that supposed to mean?” 

He shrugged. “I’ll let you know when I figure it out.” 

She quirked an eyebrow at him, finally looking underneath the sofa and finding one of his shoes. The other was in the hallway, for a reason which neither of them could figure out. 

The drive back to the banquet hall was mostly quiet. 

“What’s this song?” She asked, making a face at him. 

“Do you love it? It’s from the Ninja Turtles soundtrack.”

She looked at him cautiously. “You _are_ an adult, right?” 

He raised his eyebrows, an attempt to look serious as he put the car in park. “Thirty six,” he said through laughter. “Ninja turtles will still be cool when I’m ninety.” He paused. “Should I kiss you?”

She scoffed quietly. “Bye, Jake.” 

“Bye, Ames.”

She leaned back into the car once she shut the door. “You can text me if you need me, too.” She shrugged. “Just so you know.” 

He smiled. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

And that was all. She left, feeling just about like she always did. She shook the grin off of her face. She wasn’t sure why she was smiling. But she didn’t try to figure it out as she drove home. There wasn’t anything _to_ figure out.

It was just sex.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> additional note rq jake was not drunk while driving, v important to me that we're all on the same page with that because a. character assassination and b. drinking and driving is BAD, get a designated driver, uber, public transpo, SOMETHING ELSE. okay that's all for my soapbox thx
> 
>   
> also catch the "thirty-six" through laughter bit––I can hear it lmao. and reference to the bet, wbk my favorite episode. I'm too tired to be posting right now so you get the rambly sleepy side of me. probably there are other refs in this chap i forgot it's fine i can't keep track of myself
> 
> I think I originally said this was mostly finished. Since then I have made significant adjustments and added chapters and switched things around so it essentially went from being mostly finished to being a work in progress (my brand). just an update. ¨̮ 
> 
> sending love, hope you enjoyed!!


	3. it feels so right, feels so right

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chap title from Emarosa's The Game Played Right
> 
> _Take me to the bed,_   
>  _Because it feels so right,_   
>  _Feels so right._   
>  _Take me to the bed tonight._
> 
> _Now we move so much faster than before,_   
>  _Straight to my room,_   
>  _And baby you knock down the door._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> yooooooo what the fuck is up kyle 
> 
> hi there, here's a chapter. I'm really excited about some of the upcoming chapters and excited to show you guys the rest of this story. 
> 
> we skipped around a lil with the smut in this chapter because how much smut can you really tolerate in one story???? (hopefully more because there is def some good smut coming your way but it can't be supes heavy every single chapter y'all)

It seemed like a game to her. Who was going to call who first? It had been a week since the Christmas party, and neither of them had given in. She thought about it once, but she didn’t _need_ him. She couldn’t call him three days later, she’d never hear the end of it. 

Nine days later, it happened. She was just thinking about giving in, about texting him to be at her apartment when she got home, but then she saw him. He looked up from his table across the bar, making eye contact with her for a moment. He was at a table with a few other men. She recognized one of them as Charles. 

She looked back over at Kylie, trying to tune in to whatever she had been talking about. 

“Yeah, and then she said that mine wasn’t even that good. Can you believe that?” 

Amy scoffed. “I’m sure yours was _great._ ”

Kylie made a face. “Well… I just told you that she broke it…”

Amy tilted her head to the side. “What?” 

Her phone buzzed. 

“Are you even listening?” 

**Jake Peralta:** comin over there unless u tell me not to 

Her phone buzzed again. She looked down. He sent her a kiss emoji. 

**Jake Peralta:** that was a soft kiss lol

She bit the smile away from her bottom lip, looking up to find him looking at her with a subtle grin from his table. 

“Hello? What are you doing?” Kylie followed her gaze, then looked at her phone. “Do you know that guy?” 

Amy glanced over at Kylie. “What? No–”

“It looks like he’s coming over here. Were you texting him?” 

Amy shushed Kylie as Jake approached the table. 

“Aaaames,” he said in a sing-song voice, sliding into the booth next to her. He looked across the table at Kylie. “Amy’s friend–” He extended his hand for her to shake. “I’m Jake. I learned that handshake at a speech.” 

Amy nudged him in the side with her elbow, trying to avoid Kylie’s interested glances. He jumped back, looking at her like she actually hurt him. She shrugged quickly, making an effort to not look at the way the corner of his lips turned up, then they both looked back at Kylie. 

“What is this?” Kylie asked, a mischievous grin already in place. “You do know him.” 

He gasped, feigning offense in his voice as he turned back to Amy. “You said you didn’t know me? How dare you. I am extremely offended.”

“How do you two know each other?” 

“Work,” Amy replied immediately. 

Jake’s jaw dropped again, turning to look at her with another _how dare you_ prepared, she was sure. Then he turned back toward Kylie, a slight shrug present in his otherwise relaxed shoulders. “I guess that’s technically true, actually. Work.” 

“So that’s how you _met_ … but how do you know each other?” 

Jake scoffed. “Well, we’re not friends.” 

Kylie opened her mouth, immediately covering it with her hand and turning to Amy excitedly. 

“No-” Amy began. 

“Oh my god, this is the guy!”

“There isn’t a guy–”

“I’m the guy?” 

“This is totally the guy–”

Amy turned to Jake while Kylie blabbered about how he was _definitely_ the guy. “Kylie here is convinced that I’m seeing someone.” Jake nodded understandingly. 

“Amy, he went to a _handshake seminar!_ He’s perfect for you–”

Jake waved his hand dismissively. “If what you mean by seeing me is that she’s looking at me right now then yes, I am the guy she’s seeing. Other than that…” He shrugged. “Work.” 

Kylie frowned. “Really?” 

Jake shrugged, looking to Amy for confirmation. “Really. She’s not my _type_.” He flashed a goofy smile at Amy, then tutted quietly. “Too messy and disorganized for Jake Peralta. I just annoy her at work by being the most badass, rogue, John McClane-iest cop in the NYPD.” 

Kylie glanced at Amy slowly. “What is he talking about?” 

“It’s nothing,” Amy waved her off, rolling her eyes toward Jake. 

“I was just coming by to say _hey_ ,” he informed her quietly, leaning his head on his hand as he looked at her. “Sooo… I’ll see you around?” 

She nodded at him, regarding the way his eyebrows waggled suggestively when his face was out of Kylie’s view. “Yeah. I’ll see you around.” 

He walked back over to his table, shooting a glance at her as he sat down. He pulled his phone back out, seemingly ignoring whatever Charles was saying to him. 

“He’s cute, Amy. You sure there’s nothing there?” Kylie asked, nudging her friend from across the table. “Did you hear how he called you Ames?” 

Amy nodded, looking down at her phone as it buzzed. “I’m sure.” 

**Jake Peralta:** work later? ;) 

**Jake Peralta:** 25314 fulton. apt 7b 

Amy looked back up, popping her straw into her mouth to hide her smile with a sip. 

**Jake Peralta:** im talking abt sex btw

 **Jake Peralta:** do NOT bring work w you cant stress enough

Her phone buzzed twice more once she set it on the table, and Kylie was already throwing glances toward Jake to see him tucked obviously into his phone screen. 

She snatched the phone off of the table so quickly that Amy didn’t even have an opportunity to stop her. Everyone at Jake’s table looked at her as she squealed in shock, leaning over the table in a failed attempt at getting her phone back from her best friend. Then Kylie was giggling and Amy was burying her face in her hands as she quietly read the texts aloud.

“I’m talking about sex. Do _not_ ,” she emphasized, “bring work with you, can’t stress enough.” She tipped her head back in her laughter. “God, he has terrible grammar.”

The phone buzzed again, and both Kylie and Amy turned to see Jake trying to stifle his laughter. 

Kylie looked down at the phone. “He said, ‘tell Ames I said to look forward to the soft kisses that she _loves_ ,’” Kylie emphasized, “all caps–– ‘to give to me.’”

Amy groaned, finally snatching her phone back from Kylie and shooting a quick glare in Jake’s direction. He was absorbed in a conversation with Charles, who was talking animatedly and only not gesturing toward her table because Jake’s hand was physically preventing him. 

Kylie snickered. “Ms. Most Appropriate is dating her coworker, huh?” She paused to laugh more, practically yelling the final words. “I _knew it!”_

Amy shushed her, eyes narrowed. “He’s from a different precinct. And we’re not dating––”

“Oh _my_ god. Amy Santiago, are you telling me that Jake Peralta is your friend… with _benefits?”_ Amy was almost mad about how much she was laughing. She kicked her lightly underneath the table. 

“Shut _up_ , Kylie! We’re not friends, it’s just sex. We’ve only done it a couple of times.” She tugged at her ponytail, trying to find something to do with her hands.

Kylie snorted softly, then rolled her eyes as she took another sip of her drink. “Yeah, _okay._ Amy Santiago and the super casual sex. Wonder how that story ends?” 

Amy narrowed her eyes. “What’s that even supposed to mean? I’ve never had casual sex before, it’s not like this is a pattern.” 

“That’s _exactly_ what I’m saying. You’re thirty-four years old and you’ve never had casual sex before. What, you had like _one_ one night stand in college? Or a failed attempt at a one night stand, I should say.” Amy recognized the knowing look in Kylie’s eyes, knew that typically this look accompanied her being right about something. But she wasn’t right. Amy didn’t say anything, so Kylie sighed and continued. “I won’t say I told you so when you fall in love with that goofy guy.”

Amy scrunched up her eyebrows at her. “You won’t say I told you so because I won’t be falling in love with him.” 

“Mmhm,” Kylie hummed, and then they were being interrupted by somebody else. 

“Have a good _night_ , love of Jake’s life–” Charles managed before Jake ushered him away by the shoulder, sending Amy an apologetic, but flustered glance.

When she looked back at Kylie, she just looked smug. “Guess I’m not the only one who sees it.” 

She just rolled her eyes and finished her drink, glanced down at her phone a few times to make sure he wasn’t going to rescind the invitation after his friend’s weird outburst. They barely knew each other, and love at first sight was a ridiculous concept in cheesy movies that rarely mirrored reality. She knew Kylie was smart, but she had always been a dreamer. And yeah, the idea that her best friend would meet someone and fall in love, her plans for casual sex disrupted by feelings they couldn’t ignore was _cute_ , but it wasn’t real and she didn’t even _want_ it to be. Kylie and Charles were _both_ ridiculous. She had been in love before––twice––and that sex was nothing like sex with Jake. 

She was standing on his steps forty-five minutes later, trying to shake Kylie’s knowing glances out of her head as she knocked. He looked surprised when he opened the door. He smiled sheepishly, hand rubbing the back of his neck and then coming back to drag through his curls lazily. He shifted to the side to make room for her to enter. 

“Wasn’t sure if you’d come,” he admitted, hands fidgeting at his side.

She laughed. “What, because Boyle said you’re in love with me?” She was looking at the wall, at a Die Hard poster he had proudly displayed, but his silence spoke volumes. She turned back to look at him, his hand on the back of his neck again and his eyes on the floor. “Kylie was teasing me, too. I told her she had nothing to worry about. I could never fall in love with someone who eats orange soda in his cereal.”

He made a face at her. “Hey! I told you that so you could _try it_ , not so you could make fun of me.” He rolled his eyes. “Besides, I could never fall in love with someone who uses _regular_ binder tabs.” She quirked an eyebrow at him. “Yeah, I saw them on your table last week. I mean, c’mon, Ames. Get the personalized ones.” 

She turned back to the poster. “I could never fall in love with someone with a Die Hard poster in their living room.” 

“Oh, so you mean that you could never fall in love with someone that has good taste?” She turned back to him, watched him sink into a chair. He slid his hands up his thighs until they were resting on his knees, then turned his smirk onto her. “And to think I didn’t even say anything about your decorative spoon collection.” 

“Those are _antique_ ,” she defended, already making her way toward him. He looked up at her quietly, his tongue interrupting the stupid grin on his lips when it darted out to run across his bottom lip. 

“Your _taste_ is antique,” he corrected. 

“Classic,” she retorted, sliding her arms around his neck as she settled onto his lap. 

He laughed, twirling a stray hair from her ponytail around his finger. _”Die Hard_ is a classic. _You_ ,” he tipped her face toward his with a finger under her chin, pressing his lips to hers in a way that, albeit soft, was _very_ teasing, “are a nerd.” 

_”Haha,”_ she paused to kiss him again, humming when his hands slid around her waist and pulled her closer. “If I’m a nerd, what does that say about you?” 

“You just make me look progressively cooler,” he laughed when she scrunched her eyebrows at him, “by comparison.” 

She scoffed. “God, shut _up_.” 

He looked as though he wasn’t ready to shut up, but she didn’t give him much of a choice. She was grinding against him, pulling him closer, and things escalated quickly. Just like in her apartment a little over a week before, their clothes lined the path to his bedroom. 

This time was quicker than the last two. Straight to the point, but just as good. Amy laughed as she pulled herself out of bed. Jake lay diagonally across the bed, his sheet draped across his waist. He had his arm up, across his forehead, fingers playing lazily in his curls. His eyes were closed, and he just looked so _relaxed_.

“I’m gonna head out,” she announced. 

He opened his eyes to look at her, a gentle smile on his lips. “Mmhmm.” He closed his eyes again, relaxing further into the mattress. 

She smiled at him, shaking her head at how blissful he looked. She had a sudden urge to run her own fingers through his hair, to watch him crane toward the sensation the way she knew he would. He was cute, and it was annoying. Especially annoying when he was so warm, and outside was so cold, but staying under the blankets wrapped up in Jake was _definitely_ against an unspoken rule.

She shook the thought out of her head, making her way toward his door. 

“Ames?” 

She paused, turning back to face him. “Yeah?” 

His eyes remained closed. “Can you twist the lock on your way out?” 

She laughed. “You exhausted?” 

He opened one eye, suddenly curling onto his side and propping his head up as he looked at her. “You mean from doing all the work?” He held back his laughter, his grin growing wider. “A little.” 

“Hmm. I’ll remember that next time.” 

She walked out of the room, rolling her eyes at him calling after her. “Wait––are you gonna lock the door?” 

She was pulling her shirt over her head when he sauntered into the room, eyebrows scrunched together as he stared at her. His sweatpants were hanging low on his hips, and he laughed after a moment. 

“God, Amy. You’re like, _ogling_ me.” He moved his hands over his chest protectively. “I know you think I’m hot, but I’m a _person_. My eyes are up here.” 

She shot a glance at him as she pulled on her shoes. “Sorry, couldn’t _help myself_. You’re just _so_ attractive.” 

“Okay, I’m noticing a bit of an edge to your words that I don’t think I like…” He trailed off, and by the time she was standing upright again, he was at her side, hands pulling her hips against him.

He hummed quietly in the space below her ear, began trailing kisses down her neck, onto her shoulder. 

“Jake…” She warned softly. 

“Mmm?” He retraced his path back up her neck, stopping to whisper next to her jaw. “There a problem?” 

She was leaning against him by now, her head tilted to give him better access. “Rules.” 

He laughed, his next kiss pressed softly against her cheek. “This is taxes.”

She squirmed in his arms, turning to look at him. “What?” 

He shrugged. “Kiss tax. For being mean and making me get out of bed _and_ for making me do all the work.” 

“You didn’t do all the work–” 

He kept his arms around her, staring into her eyes with his eyebrows raised. He let his arms fall loosely to her sides, turning to stand directly in front of her.

 _”Fine._ But I did do, like, at least seventy-five percent. So I feel like that’s worth one more kiss.” 

She didn’t stop him when he leaned in. She even kissed him back. But when he leaned away with a big, goofy grin on his face, she already had a quip ready for him. “You’re making me pay for sex with kisses. You’re like, a _really_ cheap prostitute.”

She giggled as his jaw dropped, then pressed a kiss onto his cheek. “That’s your tip.” 

He scoffed, his hands slipping from her waist as she pulled away from him. He mumbled under his breath, stumbling for some sort of comeback. “I’ll–show you my– _tip_ –”

“Isn’t that what you already did?” He raised an eyebrow at her, looking for clarification. “I mean… that wasn’t the whole––oh… Oh god, I’m sorry, Jake… Nevermind.” 

He gasped. “Oh my god, you’re being so mean. If you weren’t just _begging me_ to fuck you, I might be self-conscious.” He poked his tongue into the inside of his cheek as he looked at her, and she knew he watched as her eyes hung onto the movement. “I’ll remember that next time, though.” 

She shook her head and laughed, reaching for the door handle. She opened the door, but before she could step out of it, he was pulling her back to him by her wrist. His lips were on hers so quickly, one of his hands cupping her face while the other moved into her hair. She found herself kissing him back, leaning closer, even sighing into his mouth as he pulled away from her. 

She leaned against his chest briefly, breathless and a little disappointed that it had ended. She was surprised to find that his smile wasn’t smug or teasing, but genuine. 

“That one was for being mean.” He laughed softly, pressing his finger to her lips when she stretched onto her toes to kiss him again. “Bup, bup, bup–– _rules_ , Santiago.” She looked up at him, his finger still pressed to her lips, and she could imagine that her eyes were full of the obvious desire she was feeling at his words. “Drive safe, Ames.” 

And she walked out into the snowy weather without another word. She didn’t turn back to look at him, but she could hear that he hadn’t shut the door. He watched her walk to her car, and once she was safely inside, she saw that he had already closed it. 

And that’s how things went between them for just under two months. 

-

**Jake Peralta:** u busy?

 **Amy Santiago:** My place or yours?

 **Jake Peralta:** be there in 20

-

**Amy Santiago:** I got something you might want to see, if you’re not busy.  
-img.jpeg

 **Jake Peralta:** pls tell me ur wearing that rite now

 **Amy Santiago:** Guess you’ll have to come find out. 

**Jake Peralta:** ugh unlock ur door

-

**Jake Peralta:** todayz the worst

 **Amy Santiago:** Ugh. You spelling “today’s” with a z made my day worse.

 **Jake Peralta:** srry ames :( can i make it better? 

**Amy Santiago:** I’ll be over at 7.

-

And everything was going _fantastically._ She couldn’t have planned it out to work better if she tried. Maybe being a little spontaneous was actually a good thing! She didn’t have any weird sex binders or schedules or (though she suggested it briefly after one of Jake’s stints with the soft kisses) contracts, and everything was better than she ever could have imagined. 

Jake Peralta was a crutch that she didn’t know she needed. At first, they were both so weird about it all, but the more they did this, the easier it got. When she had a bad day, she texted him. When he’d had a rough day at work, she’d get in her car to a voicemail, his voice low as he rambled through telling her that _unless she had plans, he’d see her at nine, and while food was against the rules of their arrangement, she never said anything about alcohol and he was definitely bringing some––and don’t bother with glasses, Ames. We’re drinking straight from the bottle.’_

Every now and then they bumped into one another on the job. This was something she’d been pretty stressed about in the beginning, and something she’d brought up on more than one occasion. He always brushed it off. _It’s not a big deal. We’ll figure it out if it comes up._

While this was practically the worst thing he could have said to her, he turned out to be right. It had happened twice now, their precincts collaborating on cases together, and nobody from either precinct had a clue that they knew each other outside of that time at the Christmas party. Charles talked about how they were _soulmates_ , but Jake brushed him off easily. He later assured her that years of dealing with Boyle’s antics made it fairly easy to get through. Her voice raised a pitch when Rosa asked about him later, but when she said they hadn’t seen each other again, Rosa just shrugged her off, assuming the weird voice thing had more to do with working directly with _Captain Raymond Holt_ than with Detective Jake Peralta. After the first two days, Charles stopped bothering them so much, which left more room for lingering glances and knowing grins that let one another know they were definitely game for some _overtime_. Once he got a little too overt, staring directly at her while he licked his lips suggestively. 

She followed him to his apartment, hanging back at the precinct just long enough that it wouldn’t be obvious that they were leaving together. She walked straight through the unlocked door when she got there, a habit that he had gotten into at her apartment whenever she preemptively unlocked the door for him.

He was already grinning at her when she walked in. “D’you like that?” He bit his lip as he waited for the response he knew she was going to have. 

“You _can’t_ do stuff like that at work, Jake. What if somebody saw?” She pulled her jacket off, hanging it on the hook by his door, then slipped off her shoes before making her way to where he was sitting on the counter waiting for her. 

“Okay… But did anybody see, though?”

A little crease formed between her eyebrows. “I don’t _think_ so…”

He pushed himself off the counter, his hands moving straight to her hips. “You know what I think?” 

Her eyes flickered over his face, quiet as his lips brushed against hers. She was waiting, either for him to answer his question or for him to kiss her. She knew which one she _should_ be waiting for, but she found herself glancing at his lips and letting her tongue dart out across her own, and she knew he was going to tease her about it and maybe even wait longer to kiss her but she had been watching him all day at work and she just wanted him, okay? She could only maintain her high performance at work while being highly distracted by him for so long without a break, and try as he might, she wasn’t down for alone time in the evidence room (at the precinct where her dream mentor was captain? Was he insane?). The trouble with the casual relationship was that they didn’t interact much outside of the sex, which meant that they spent a lot of time noticing things about each other that pertained directly to sex. 

Which was fine when they only saw each other when they met _for_ sex. It was much less fine when he was leaning over her shoulder to read a case file and she could feel her breath hitch as his breath fell against her ear and he _wasn’t even doing anything_. Or was he doing it on purpose?

She saw the same thing happen to him. She’d catch him staring at her, or catch him staring at the floor in thought with _that_ look on his face, or he’d walk too close to her and she’d hear him sigh, stepping inconceivably closer when he caught the scent of her hair. She was beginning to think that they needed to either work together more, or not work together at all. This working together for a few days every few weeks thing was taking its toll on her focus. 

It was doing _wonders_ for their sex life, though. 

He laughed softly. “I think it doesn’t matter if anybody saw, because you know what _I_ saw?” The hands on her hips slipped underneath her shirt, rubbing gently and breaking her concentration down _just that much_ more. “I saw _you_ noticing _me._ ” 

She scoffed. “Oh, is that what you saw?” She rocked her hips closer to him, grinning at her victory when his breath caught. “Weird, because _I_ saw _you_ staring at the floor and _clearly_ picturing that thing I do–”

“C’mon, don’t bring up the thing,” he whined. “You know that’s not fair. It feels so _good.”_

She giggled, tugging at the tie that still hung loosely around his neck. She held his eye contact, voice soft and low. “I could _do_ the thing,” she whispered. “Ya’know, unless you’d rather keep teasing me.” He made a soft sound that resembled a growl, his narrowed eyes trained on hers. “Your call, Peralta.” 

He let her lead him to his bedroom, just as she’d expected him to. His hand felt warm, fingers laced with hers, and though she wouldn’t admit it to him, she’d been thinking about it all day, too. 

She curled into his side when they were finished, Jake laughing breathlessly and shaking his head at her. His fingers trailed up her back, tracing up and down across her spine. “I’m supposed to see you at work and not think about that?” 

She tapped her fingers lightly on his chest. This _wasn’t_ cuddling. They were simply catching their breath for a moment before she readied herself to leave his apartment. “Look, Jake. If it’s _that_ distracting, we can always stop this.” She shrugged, looking up at him and watching him roll his eyes. “I mean, I’m sure you’ll figure out how to survive without me.” 

He laughed at her, but he didn’t come back with a quip like she expected him to. Instead, he shrugged, her head bobbing slightly with his shoulder, and looked at her earnestly. “You know…” He looked away again, down toward his chest, and the hand on her back stilled. “I wasn’t really sure about all this at first.” 

She watched quietly as his free hand travelled into his hair. He seemed to always touch his hair when he was dazed and sleepy after sex, and she had no real reason to think that there was anything different happening now. Yet for some reason, it really caught her attention. He was looking away from her, but he was definitely _looking_. His eyes were open, which was a shift from how he’d normally be––especially after what she’d just done to him. She waited patiently through the long pause while he searched for words.

“I guess… Ya’know, the rules and everything. I thought we were too different to make something like this work.” He looked at her again, eyes soft, with a smile to match. “But I’m really glad we’re doing this. 

She laughed. “Yeah? You enjoying it?” 

His eyebrows raised slightly. “I feel like no matter how I answer that, you’re going to make fun of me.” 

“Oh, you’re absolutely right,” she agreed, rolling off of his side and onto her stomach to look at him more easily. He adjusted so he could keep his hand on her lower back. “If you said yes, I was going with _’yeah, I could tell,’_ and if you said no, it was gonna be _’really? Because you seemed to like it when I touched––’”_

“O _kay_ ,” he interrupted, laughing with her. “I _do_ like it.” He shrugged. “I just wanted to say thanks. For suggesting this, I mean. Things are going great and it’s really casual and way easier to juggle than I thought it would be. With work and everything, I mean. So." He held up his hand for a high five. 

She nodded, then laughed as she high-fived him. “Yeah. I think I kind of expected something to go wrong, but I’m really glad it didn’t. This is fun.” He leaned his face on his pillow, grinning at her. She scoffed. “Okay, Peralta. Don’t get all soft on me, now.” 

He waggled his eyebrows at her. “Are you saying you want me _hard_ on you?” 

She made an unamused sound, pushing against his side to roll away from him. “Gross.” 

His jaw dropped. “Gross? You didn’t think it was gross a few minutes ago.” His lower lip jutted out in an obviously fake pout. He recovered quickly, rolling after her and cinching his arm around her waist. He pressed kisses against her ribs, nudging her with his nose when she hummed at the sensation. “Don’t leave. Tomorrow’s your last day at the nine-nine for a while, right?” He paused to trail a few more kisses closer to her chest. “I think maybe if we try hard enough, we can both be _productive_ instead of distracted by each other.” 

She groaned. “Stop trying to turn me on with sexy stuff like productivity.” 

He laughed into his kisses. “You like that? I thought you might.” 

“I don’t think more sex now will make us want less sex tomorrow––”

“Right, no amount of sex could satiate your need for my body, of course,” he looked up at her expectantly, his grin getting wider by the second. 

She rolled her eyes, but the warm kisses he pressed onto her chest quickly had her closing them completely. He laughed softly, his voice encouraging a familiar tingle, warmth spreading across her. “You can leave if you want, but… I bet I can make it worth your while if you stay.” 

“Yes–– _yes_ , okay, just––”

“Mhmm,” he hummed, already shifting so that he could fit comfortably between her thighs. He laughed. “Maybe it won’t work for you, but I bet it’ll work for me. Then I can just turn you on even more tomorrow with all my _productivity_.” 

“Jake–” She whimpered impatiently.

“Mhm, yup!” 

He was eager to please her, as always, fingers and tongue working to get her into that sweet spot where she was _so_ close, but then pulling back just enough to drag it out and keep her begging. But as her fingers threaded through his hair, a thought began invading her mind. 

Things were _perfect._ She would be perfectly happy if things just stayed like this forever. ( _Forever? Calm down, Amy. For the foreseeable future._ )

‘Be a shame if something ruined that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> that lil cliffhanger tho????
> 
> what are we thinkin?


	4. i just keep her warm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from Sparks the Rescue's My Heart Radio. 
> 
> _The sun it woke us both up,_  
>  _Came in your window and across the floor,_  
>  _To where she keeps her door locked._  
>  _I swear she doesn't love me, I just keep her warm._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this chapter seems like it took forever!! Took a lil abrupt trip to ny for a week and then kept fine-tuning this trying to get it exactly right, so hopefully you all approve. ¨̮ ¨̮ ¨̮

“Gina, it’s not funny.”

She had her face hidden in her elbow, leaned over on her desk, pretending to try to stifle her laughter. 

“She said I was a cheap prostitute,” he scrunched his eyebrows at her. 

Gina raised her eyebrows in response, not bothering to look up from her phone. “You’d be a decent prostitute.”

Jake scoffed. “I would be a _great_ prostitute.”

She shook her head at him, reaching out to touch his face dramatically. “Oh, sweet, stupid Jake.” 

He rolled his eyes at her, knocking her hand off of his face with his wrist. The dinging elevator caught both of their attention. Everyone on the squad was already in the bullpen, and as far as he knew, they weren’t expecting anyone. Jake turned back to Gina, remembering something else he wanted to say. 

“I don’t know––I’m just saying––”

“Jake–– _Jake_ ,” Gina interrupted, looking behind him. He looked at her, expectant and a little annoyed. “Isn’t that Arnie? That just walked in?” 

Jake turned quickly, looking directly at Amy Santiago. Rosa was behind her. He tilted his head at Amy, and her eyes quickly shifted away from him. He watched as both Amy and Rosa walked into Holt’s office, shutting the door behind them.

Jake swivelled back around to face Gina, eyebrow cocked in confusion. “So… that was weird, right?”

Gina shrugged. “She seemed the same as every other time she’s been here.” Gina looked down at her nails, smoothing her thumb over one of them. “Except that she looked away from you and normally she won’t stop looking at you.” 

Jake scoffed again. “She does not.”

_“Girl.”_

“Does she?” 

Gina raised her eyebrows. “I knew there was something up with you two before you even thought about telling me.” 

Jake groaned. “Okay––Gina, please don’t tell anybody. We have a really good, really chill thing going on. No complications.” He peeked over at Charles’ desk, lowering his voice. “Nobody knows, and that’s how she wants it.”

She didn’t say anything for a moment, and Jake was sure that he was going to have to bribe her into secrecy. She looked up at him, then glanced over at Holt’s desk. “You know, Jake. I’m no detective, but it seems to me like there might _already_ be some complications.” She pressed her fingertips on her left hand all together and pointed them toward him. “I.e., your girlfriend’s in your boss’s office and she immediately looked away from you when she walked in.” 

“She’s not my girlfriend,” he muttered quietly, sinking back into his chair.

“Yeah, whatever.” 

He rolled his eyes, making a scene of shoving himself away from Gina’s desk and making his way back over to his own desk. Was Gina right? Did something happen? She did look a little strange when she walked in, but he didn’t really recognize the look on her face. Rosa, of course, was no help. Her expressions were practically carved from stone. 

“Psst.” Charles was looking at him from his desk. “Did you see Santiago come in?” Jake eyed him curiously. “She didn’t look like she was doing okay. You talked to her lately?” 

Jake stumbled over his words. “What?” He scoffed. “No, of course not. Why would I have spoken to her?” 

She accidentally slept at his apartment the night before. It was nothing major. He’d slept at her apartment once. But she was the one who set the rules, and she was also the one who relaxed into his side after her third orgasm. Her fingers threaded through his hair loosely, her arm strewn across his bare chest, and she was asleep within minutes. And what was he supposed to do? Wake her up? ( _Yes._ He learned in the morning that the answer was yes.)

The door to Holt’s office opened, and everyone turned to watch Amy and Rosa exit the office. Holt followed behind them. Amy still didn’t make eye contact with Jake. Maybe she really _was_ upset that she’d slept over. Maybe the rules were more serious than he’d previously thought. 

“Attention, detectives,” Holt began, waiting for everyone to look at him. “I’m sure you remember the audits we received a few months ago?” He paused, waiting for the collective nod that the room gave him. “Yes, well… Our precinct is staying open, as you know. The eight-two, however, is closing. Detectives Santiago and Diaz are the precinct’s two best detectives, and as a result of the closing, will be joining our precinct, effective immediately. I expect that you will all welcome them.” 

For the first time, Amy met his eyes. As quickly as she met his stare, her eyes flickered back to the floor. 

Well _fuck_. So much for no complications. 

“Detective Peralta,” Holt continued, “you’ve been working with Detective Santiago recently, and I hear that you attended the academy with Detective Diaz?” He waited for Jake to react. His eyes flickered over to Amy again. She was looking down at the floor, and she looked tense. He nodded. “Why don’t you give your new colleagues a full tour? Detective Santiago, you’ll be taking the desk across from Detective Peralta. Detective Diaz, you’ll be across from Detective Boyle.”

Amy stammered. “Uh––Sir, does that mean––”

“Are you reassigning our partners?!” Boyle practically shouted.

Captain Holt blinked slowly at Charles. “To account for departmental differences between the precincts, it would be best for the new detectives to be phased into our squad. To achieve this with ease, Santiago and Peralta will be partnered, while you and Diaz will be partnered. 

Amy’s head hung even heavier now, and he had to take a deep, concentrated breath to avoid rolling his eyes. He wasn’t sure she _could_ be more obvious. Holt said ‘Peralta’s your partner,’ and she practically became the walking embodiment of shame. He _did_ roll his eyes at himself for the comment he made just a short while earlier, his words echoing in his head. 

_We have a chill thing going on. No complications._

He smiled tightly and stood, looking only at Rosa. “Yeah, yeah of course. Right this way, detectives.” 

Rosa regarded him with a smirk, immediately aware that something was going on. Maybe Rosa knew more about their situation than he was aware, but he was pretty sure that Amy wasn’t telling anybody. He shook the thought out of his head, sure that he needed to avoid hinting at it in case Rosa didn’t know. 

He walked them all around the precinct, showing them each floor. He pointed out all of the bathrooms, took them through each row of the evidence locker and explained the filing system (he disregarded Amy’s gasp at the lacking organization), showed them the areas to avoid if they didn’t want to see Hitchcock and Scully being particularly gross. 

“And that’s the ceiling tile that has a spot that looks like a goldfish!” He clasped his hands together, turning toward them dramatically. “And that brings us to the end of our tour. For any questions, or if you’d like a detailed tour including all of the locations of big breaks in my cases, please contact my PR manager, Gina Linetti.” 

Gina scoffed from her desk. “If anybody here needs a PR manager, it’s me. Nice try, girl.” 

“Okay,” Jake smiled at Gina, then turned back to Amy and Rosa. “But yeah, I think that’s everything. I’m accepting tips for my hard work, if anyone’s interested.” 

Rosa breathed a dry laugh. “Yeah, I have a tip. Be a better tour guide.” 

He blinked wildly at her back as she turned to walk over to her new desk. He redirected his attention to Amy, his lips pressing into a tight, fake smile. 

“Uh… Detective Peralta? Can you show me the police cruiser assigned to us? Since we’re partners, I mean.” 

Rosa turned from her desk and quirked an eyebrow, and Jake once again wondered if she knew anything about them. 

“Oh, yeah. C’mon, I’ll take you there now.” 

She waited _just_ until the elevator door closed. 

“We have to stop sleeping together.” 

Jake groaned dramatically, the sound echoing through the elevator. “Why?” 

She looked at him like he was stupid. “Because we’re partners!” 

He shook his head at her, waving his hand dismissively. “Okay, and?”

She sighed. “Look, Jake… That’s got to be against some kind of rule, right? And even if it’s not, it isn’t _morally_ sound. And I want to impress Captain Holt! I don’t think he’s going to be impressed if he finds out that I’m sleeping with––”

The elevator door opened, and Amy quickly stopped talking. She glanced out to confirm that the receptionist was fielding a phone call before she whispered the final words. “My partner. I don’t want it to affect our work.” 

Jake waited until they were outside of the building to respond. “Okay, first of all, so cute that you think I would affect your work. I mean, if anything, I’d probably make you better, but that’s beside the point.” She rolled her eyes at him, and he laughed quietly. “But we’ve _been_ working together, and we’ve been sleeping together, and it’s been fine. Dare I say, it’s been _better_.” 

She shook her head, but he caught the hint of a grin tugging at her lips. “No. We were collaborating on cases together. I’m your _partner_ now, Jake.” 

“But we’re so good at sex,” he whined. 

She smacked him on the shoulder. “Be _quiet_. See, this is exactly why! If you’re just going around talking about it––”

“I’m talking to _you_. You’re the one who started this conversation!”

She waited for him to unlock the door, then quickly climbed into the passenger seat. She waited for him to follow suit, then began talking again when the door was shut. 

“Listen,” she paused, a heavy sigh interrupting her words, “I just really think it would be best if we called this off.”

He stared at the windshield for a long moment, then sighed. “Alright, yeah. If that’s what you think is best, then fine. I mean, I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t affect my work. But if that’s what you want…” He shrugged his shoulders at her. 

“Thank you.” 

“Yeah. I mean, it’s your choice. But I won’t be weird about it, if that’s what you wanted to check on. Totes profesh.” 

They were both silent for a beat, then he laughed. “But I mean, if you wanted to come over tonight… Just one last time…” He was looking down at the steering wheel, smiling to himself as he rubbed his thumb pointedly across the wheel. “I mean, if I had known last night was gonna be the last time, I would’ve––”

He stopped talking when she grabbed his bicep. He grinned when he looked at her. Her eyes were closed, eyebrows pulled together slightly, and he knew she was thinking about exactly what he was referring to. 

“Not a good idea.” She nodded to herself, then opened her eyes. She cleared her throat lightly, and he choked out a quiet laugh. She pulled her hand off of his arm, extending it toward him. “Partners?” 

He shook her hand firmly. “Yeah, cool, cool, cool. Partners. No doubt, no doubt.” 

She made a face at him. “Thought you weren’t gonna be weird?” 

He laughed. “Oh, you’ve left the Jake Peralta: super attractive lover zone and entered the Jake Peralta: super fun partner zone. Welcome.”

She shook her head at him as she opened the door to get out of the car. “You’re a dork.” 

“And you’re a nerd. Best partner combination at the nine-nine.” She laughed quietly at him, then they walked silently back to the building. 

Before they made it inside, a new question was looming in Jake’s mind. “Why didn’t you tell me you were being transferred here?” 

He watched as she processed the question. Her lips pressed together, and she nodded down at the floor as they stepped into the building. They waited for the elevator, Amy glancing around them before she replied. “We just found out we were being transferred here this morning.” 

“But you knew your precinct was closing? I could’ve––”

“You didn’t need to.” She stepped onto the elevator, Jake’s eyes flickering over her in what was almost annoyance as he followed her. She sighed. “Look, ya’know, we’re not _friends_. I didn’t want you to help me find a new precinct or anything. You were doing exactly what I needed you to do.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “You hadn’t noticed that I’ve been coming over way more than usual?” 

He leaned against the wall. “Ohhh. I just thought you couldn’t get enough of me.” 

She smiled as she shook her head. “I’ve been stressed.” He watched as she poked her tongue into the inside of her cheek. “Guess I’ll have to find a new way to destress.”

He cleared his throat, trying to redirect the conversation. “Wait, how did _your_ precinct get closed? Aren’t you and Rosa both, like, _great_ detectives?” 

Amy rolled her eyes, sighing heavily before she even had a chance to speak. “Did you meet the auditor?”

Jake chuckled. “Are you referring to Tedious Teddy Wells?” Amy’s blank stare made him laugh again. “...Ya’know, because tedious means boring… and he’s… _I know words_.” 

She shook her head dismissively. “He’s my ex.” 

Jake’s jaw dropped. _”You_ dated _Teddy?!”_ He was laughing way harder than he should have been, but her expression just egged him on. He was breathless by the time he recovered enough to ask a follow up question. “Teddy Wells? _Why?”_

Her eyebrows scrunched together. “He’s a nice guy. We had a lot in common––”

“Oh, you’re also boring and listen to soft jazz and––”

“Shut _up_ , Peralta.”

He shook his head. “Wait, so he gave you guys a bad rating because he’s your ex?” 

Amy shrugged. “I don’t know that for _sure_ , but we definitely weren’t expecting to be shut down. It was pretty clear from his visit that he still had feelings for me, and I was pretty clear that I had no interest. So…”

“Man.” Jake crossed his arms, leaning against the wall of the elevator. “That’s really shitty, Ames. You guys didn’t deserve that.” 

She smiled tightly at him. “I mean, it definitely interrupted the way my life was going.” She gestured between them, eyes quickly shifting to the floor. “But Rosa and I didn’t get separated. So that’s cool.” She paused for a moment, her attention moving from the floor back to his face with a grin. “Teddy was around our precinct all the time and he was _obsessed_ with pilsners. Losing my job entirely would’ve been worth not having to ever hear about pilsners again.” 

Jake gasped dramatically. “Oh my god, I _love_ pilsners! My favorite thing about them is that they––” He trailed off, her wide eyes proving that he’d already achieved his goal of scaring Amy into thinking that he knew anything about pilsners. 

She elbowed him in the side. “Stop! I was about to resign.” 

They were laughing together as they stepped off of the elevator, but the looks they got from both Rosa and Charles shut them up pretty quickly. 

Yeah, maybe this wasn’t _preferable_ , but it would be fine. They were adults. They could totally handle this. 

Flash forward three weeks. 

They could _not_ handle this. 

All the looks and the teasing and flirting had been one thing. They managed to keep their hands off of each other. They hadn’t even had any close calls or anything. 

They worked _okay_ together. For the most part, it was pretty easy to get over hooking up with her. She was so _annoying_. He knew that she was a little uptight before they worked together, but he hadn’t seen the half of it. She followed every rule almost to a fault. She got mad when he tried to tell her that she needed to loosen up a little bit. She knew every procedural and took extra time to take care of paperwork and complained about every illegible word he wrote and turned into a giant weirdo when Holt was around. 

But they always had each other’s backs. That’s what mattered. Of course they did. She backed his offbeat hunches and he backed her extra trips to the crime scene, working overtime to look for evidence they may have missed. She was thorough, and as much as it bothered him, he also appreciated it. 

He often worked on instinct. Sometimes he missed Boyle, who would immediately work on whatever suggestion he made, but in some ways it was refreshing to have Amy around. There was always a competitive air between them, like whoever got the solve won some unspoken bet. The worst part about all of it was that he was pretty sure she was making him a _better_ detective. 

He was already the best, and her being around didn’t threaten that, but he was noticing more things now that she was around. Was it because he wanted to notice things before she did? Because she was always playing devil’s advocate with his theories, pushing them both to reach for more details? Because he wanted to prove that he was better than her? Because he wanted to _impress her?_ He wasn’t entirely sure, but it was happening, regardless. 

He had a lot of mixed feelings about his new partner. In the three weeks that they’d been partnered, they’d seen a lot of each other–– _not_ the title of their sex tape, they didn’t do _that_ anymore. They celebrated one another’s triumphs, stood by (somewhat begrudgingly––why hadn’t Santiago messed up yet, anyway?) through the repercussions of missteps, and teased each other mercilessly. One of his favorite pastimes was annoying her into laughing at him.

So things were going _fine_. And then, all of a sudden, things were going less fine. 

The crime scene: Shaw’s bar. 

Jake and Amy arrived first. Not together, though they walked in at the same time, Jake teasing Amy about how she was probably waiting in her car for him to walk up. He’d caught her, she _was_ waiting for someone else to arrive, but simply because she didn’t want to sit inside by herself waiting for everyone, _not_ because she wanted to follow him, or _have an excuse to stare at his butt like the weirdo she is_ , as Jake suggested. They sat on opposite sides of the round booth, making small talk while they waited for everyone else to arrive. 

“Are you wearing a _dress?”_ He eyed her curiously across the table. 

She gasped. “Wow, Peralta! Great observation skills! Maybe you could try bringing those to a crime scene every now and then.” 

He had to work extra hard not to grin at the giant smile she broke into at her joke. “Okay, I observe _the hell_ out of crime scenes. I’m, like, the Where’s Waldo champion of Brooklyn. I’m talkin’ I-Spy all over this bitch.” 

She rolled her eyes, but she laughed softly. She took a quick sip of the beer she’d ordered when they walked in. “You glad we closed that Atlantic Ave murder?”

Jake groaned. “Oh my god, please don’t talk about it. I need a drink before we get into the case from hell. It’s still fresh in my mind.” 

She giggled. “God, the _bodega owners_.” 

“Right?! I’ve never had a civilian so wrapped up in a case before. For a minute I wondered––”

“If he was the murderer?!”

 _”Yes!_ Oh my god, I’m so glad I’m not the only one!”

They settled into a silence that was _almost_ comfortable. The squad began filing in, and before they knew it, they were squished together in the center of the booth. They were _way_ too close for comfort, everyone squeezed closer than normal to accommodate the entire group. Their thighs touched, and no matter how they moved, their arms touched in some capacity, too. 

Amy was at least acting like it didn’t bother her––did it bother her? He couldn’t tell. It was all he could think about. He kept getting distracted during conversations. She’d laugh and her hair would brush against him when she’d move, and he’d look at her and lose his entire train of thought. He missed that laugh. Sure, he made her laugh at work all the time, but the controlled rhythm of her laughter on a case was nothing compared to the uninhibited sound of her laughter here, two drinks in at the bar, or, just as an example, when she was curled into his side in her bed. 

But it was fine! Just being partners was going _fine_. They hadn’t run into any problems _at all_. They also hadn’t been quite this close at all. They definitely hadn’t been quite this drunk (or drunk at all, for that matter). 

Five drinks in, her hand found its way to his thigh. She was one drink behind him, and he was wondering if the action had her head spinning as much as it did his. He was certain that he had been pretty obvious when he looked down at her hand, but she didn’t move it. She didn’t move it _away_ , at least. Her fingers were moving, tracing the inside of his thigh while she talked to their friends like nothing was going on underneath the table. 

A few minutes later, he caught her watching him squirm, the proud look not quite hidden on her face. His eyebrows knitted together as he looked at her, his expression somewhere between _what are you doing?_ and please don’t stop doing that. She took the hint, sliding her hand up just a little higher and squeezing lightly. He looked down at the table, fighting off the shiver trying to creep its way up his spine. He visibly shuddered just enough to get everyone’s attention on him. 

Charles eyed him suspiciously. “Jake? You okay?” 

“What?” His voice cracked. He cleared his throat quietly. “Uh, yeah, no, I’m good, I’m fine. Just a chill. Is it a little cold in here?” 

Rosa laughed. “You don’t look fine.”

“It’s like ninety degrees in here,” Gina added, eyeing him suspiciously. 

Amy turned to look at him. She applied a little pressure to that spot with her fingertips. “Yeah, you do look a little weird.” She turned back to the rest of the group. “Does he look a little red to you?” 

His head snapped toward her as her fingers creeped even higher up the inside of his thigh. He made a quiet sound at the back of his throat, his hand discretely moving to still her eager fingertips. “Guys,” his voice just slightly higher than normal, “I’m fine, really.” 

“You look feverish,” Charles chimed in. “Amy, switch spots with me so I can––”

“No!” Jake interrupted. Everyone stared at him, eyebrows raised above their questioning eyes. He swallowed as he felt the loss of Amy’s hand, pulling away from his leg carefully. Then he was stammering, trying to cover for his weird outburst. “No, I mean… If I’m sick, I don’t want you to get sick, too. Amy’s already next to me, so she’s got it either way. No reason to put two teams out of commission, right?” He chuckled nervously, his hand moving to scratch the back of his neck. 

_”Ooookay,”_ Gina looked at Rosa, then both of them glanced between Jake and Amy. Amy took another sip of her drink as if nothing strange was going on at the table. 

“You two are being weird,” Rosa finally diagnosed. 

“I’m not being weird,” Amy shot back. She blinked at Rosa, a look in her eyes that Jake definitely recognized. Her voice was lower when she continued. “I can prove it, if you want.” 

Gina’s laugh came out more surprised than anything else. “Okay, how many drinks have you had? Four? Four drink Amy’s a bit of a pervert.”

Things settled down for a little while after that. Stupidly, he thought that meant it was all fine. Bit of a perv Amy had her sights directed mostly at Gina and Rosa while Charles was talking to him about some alcohol dipped shrimp that are eaten _alive_.

“Charles, say the word ‘scrumptious’ one more time, I _dare you_ ,” Gina hissed from across the table, startling Charles. 

Amy’s responding laugh was heavily influenced by how much she’d had to drink. She leaned over into Jake, grabbing his shoulder as she laughed. Her leg shifted into his lap, the bend in her knee hooking around his thigh so that she was angled slightly more toward him. 

“Maybe we should start getting ready to go.” Rosa carefully avoided looking at Amy, sure that she would refuse if she suspected that they were leaving because of her. 

She still whined quietly. “But I’m having so much fuuuun.” She dragged her words out, still hanging off of his arm and practically crawling into his lap. He shook his head to avoid laughing at her, sure that having her attention turned fully toward him would be disastrous for both of them. 

“Yeah, I have an early cooking class in the morning.” Charles shrugged. “I don’t want to be late when they teach us how to make escargot tortellini––”

“Yep, that’s it, I’m out!” Gina shouted, waving goodbye to Jake and Amy before she pushed herself out of the booth. 

Rosa eyed Amy for a moment, then slid closer to Jake’s other side. “You want me to get her home?”

Amy’s head was on his shoulder now, her eyes closed as she leaned on him. He looked down at her, then back to Rosa. “No, I’ve got her. Don’t worry.” 

Rosa stared at him a moment, then rolled her eyes. “You’re hopeless.” 

He scrunched his eyebrows up. “What do you mean?” 

Rosa shrugged as she pulled the zipper up a little higher on her jacket. “Nothing.” 

“I snapped a picture,” Charles beamed at Jake as he shrugged his jacket on, “so you can look back on this moment when you’re married.” 

Rosa laughed and high-fived Charles. 

“Shut up, Boyle.”

“See you Monday, Jake.” 

He waved them off without another word. He was grateful that she appeared to be falling asleep on him. 

He didn’t like Amy. Not like that. And she didn’t like him. 

They were partners. 

They wouldn’t ever be anything more than that, _definitely_ wouldn’t ever be getting married. They were doing great at this whole partners thing! And yeah, maybe tipsy Amy got a little more touchy than she had been in the past few weeks, but that didn’t mean anything. And yeah, maybe he liked having her head on his shoulder, her fingers gripping his bicep as her steady breath brushed against his arm. But that was just because she was––objectively––cute and it just felt nice, it didn’t have to mean anything more than that. 

He was still thinking about this when Amy’s hands wandered from his bicep down to his side, tugging at the t-shirt underneath his flannel. Her soft voice was more than suggestive in his ear. “Take me home, Jake.” 

He practically jumped back, looking down at her in surprise. “I’m sorry, what?” 

She giggled, leaning back a little as she did. He reached out to steady her, one hand winding around her waist and the other grabbing her in the first place he found––her bare, inner thigh. He clenched his jaw, but stupidly, he didn’t let go. 

He knew what she was doing when she made that sound in his ear, but knowing her intention didn’t make it not work. “I’ve missed the way you touch me.”

He breathed roughly, yet he found his fingers traversing the soft skin he’d found. She hummed again, sliding her legs apart a little further, his hand now completely hidden underneath the sundress she’d worn. 

“Amy…”

Her hands slid down his torso, back onto his thighs. She was inches away from where he was craving her touch, and they were tucked into the back corner of the nearly empty bar. His own fingers continued slowly tracing along her thigh. 

“Jake, _touch me_ ,” she whimpered against his neck. 

What choice did he have? His thoughts were already swirling around his head miles faster than the already quick pace he was used to. Each syllable of every rule jumbled together, alcohol influencing his head to tilt away, giving her the space she needed to press her lips against his throat. Her tongue focused in on that spot on his neck, and he didn’t really remember making the decision, but then his fingers were pressed against fabric, knuckles working soft gasps from between her lips. He was practically making a game of hearing every hushed sound she made, but when she gripped him through his jeans, it pulled him right back to reality. 

“Fuck, Ames, we shouldn’t…” His fingers traced back along her thigh as he pulled his hand back, but not entirely away. “This isn’t what you want.” 

“It is.” She insisted, her eyes dark as they stared back at him. She rubbed against his length, and his eyes slipped shut for a second.

He shook his head. “No, it’s not.”

“I want you, Jake.” She emphasized the statement with a little more pressure.

He breathed shakily. “Maybe this isn’t what I want?” 

Her hand slipped away from him, but stayed anchored on his thigh. “You don’t want this?” 

He was immediately feeling the loss of her hand on him. “I don’t want…” He shook his head. _“After_. I don’t want you to wish it didn’t happen.” 

“I won’t.” 

He caught her wrist in his hand as she slid it back toward its previous position. “I think maybe we should just head home?” 

She groaned, pulling away from him and sliding toward the edge of the booth. “You’re a tease.” 

He laughed at her. “I’m a tease?”

“Can I show you something?” She disregarded his question as she stood, and he shifted to try and make walking a little more comfortable.

“Go for it, I guess.” 

She laced her fingers with his, walking ahead of him toward the back of the bar. He wasn’t sure exactly what she wanted to show him. The pool table? Was there a new painting? Was this a reminder about how she’d kicked his ass in darts the week before? He was trying his hardest to place it, acutely aware of the sharp shift in conversation that had her leading him toward the pool tables in the first place. 

For a detective, he should probably be a little bit more alert. Although, to be fair, he _was_ tipsy and it _was_ late. Her grip on his hand got a little tighter, and in one quick motion, she pulled him into the bathroom with her and shut the door. He was surprised––and yet he didn’t miss a beat in kissing her back. 

She broke the kiss to laugh against his lips. “I can be a tease, too.” 

He used his hands on her hips to turn her around and press her against the wall. One hand tangled through her hair, the other pushing her thighs apart again. He pushed her underwear to the side, his fingers slipping past the fabric and quickly earning himself an enthusiastic response from her. 

“Is this what you wanted?” His voice was low in her ear, spurred on by her whimpers and her hips moving against his efforts. “You miss it when I touch you like this?” 

She was breathing through everything he was doing to her, her hands still as she gripped his bicep, kept herself steady with the hand on his chest. He’d missed this so much, her eyes trained on his, that little crease between her eyebrows, and her lips parted, and had he not been so busy, he may have laughed. She’d missed this too, more than he thought. 

“I asked you a question.” She gasped at the combination of his voice getting exponentially more stern and his fingers slowing. “Did you miss me?” 

Her eyes flickered across his face and she watched as his eyes were drawn to her tongue darting across her bottom lip. “Yes.” 

“Yeah?” He quickened his movements a little, her breathing picking up with his hands. 

“Yes––God, _yes_ , I missed you, _fuck.”_

She could see in his face that he was feeling self-satisfied, and she couldn’t have that. She shifted and tugged on his button until it popped open, giving her enough space to slip her hand inside his jeans and grip him. She bit her lip, looking back into his eyes with slightly raised eyebrows. “I missed _this_ , too.” 

His movements slowed almost instantly, his attention now shifted between both touching her and feeling her touch him. 

Within minutes, they were trying to figure out the logistics of having sex in a public bathroom. 

“I don’t wanna––” She paused to hum as he kissed her neck. “Don’t wanna touch anything.”

“Against the sink?”

“Jake, I don’t wanna–– _fuck_ ––I don’t wanna touch it.”

“It’s clean, that’s where people wash their hands.”

“That does _not_ mean it’s clean.” 

“I could––” He leaned her against the wall again, lifting her so that he could get a good angle. “Think this’ll work.” 

She tipped her head back as he pushed into her just slightly, but then there was the distinct _smack_ sound of something being dropped on the floor. He groaned, looking down at the floor to find that his wallet had slipped out of his back pocket. He pulled back, lowering her back to the floor. 

“I don’t wanna forget it, let me just…” He kneeled down and picked it up, replacing it in his pocket before he returned to her. 

“Jake, you just touched the floor, c’mon.”

“God, you’re consistent.” He sighed, moving to the sink to wash his hands. She appeared behind his reflection, winding her arms around his waist and stroking him as he washed his hands. He grinned at her in the mirror, shutting off the water with a paper towel (it’s possible that she’d chastised him for not doing this in the past). “All good?” 

“Be better if you were fucking me.” 

She sighed into his mouth, their tongues working in tandem with one another. He’d missed kissing her, missed the way her soft laughter would trail into a satisfied little hum, missed her hands exploring him. He was approximately four thrusts in when she reached for the wall, looking for stability, and hit the button on the hand dryer. 

They tipped their foreheads together, both all giggles as the hand dryer roared next to them. They laughed with each other until the dryer stopped, then they shared a kiss that brought them right back into their moment. He had just worked into a good rhythm again when something else caught his attention. 

_Smack._

Jake groaned as his wallet hit the floor again, but Amy couldn’t stop laughing. He still had her leaned against the wall, and the laughter was creeping back into his own throat. She leaned her forehead against his, her hand sliding up against his jaw. 

“Is this kind of ridiculous?” He asked. 

She kissed him gently, as if she were assuring him that it was okay that they couldn’t figure this out. “I’ll own up to the fact this probably wasn’t our best idea.” 

He laughed again. _“Our?”_ He adjusted, setting her back on the floor. “I seem to remember _you_ dragging _me_ into this bathroom.” 

She scoffed, adjusting her dress and looking into the mirror to fix her hair. “I don’t seem to remember you trying to get back out.” She mimicked his voice. “‘Think this’ll work...’”

He was already zipping his jeans back up, making a face at her, but trying not to laugh. “Wow, Amy. Wow. Wow. _Wow._ ”

She shook her head, eyeing him pointedly as he picked up his wallet, a silent reminder to wash his hands again. “Shut up, Jake.” 

Hank looked straight at them as they walked out of the bathroom. He averted his eyes, like he hadn’t just seen them both walking out of the single stall bathroom together. 

“Guess we probably could’ve been a little stealthier about that, huh?” Jake murmured quietly. Amy tipped her head down, pretending not to notice when Jake stepped up to the counter to slip a couple extra dollars into the tip jar. A silent apology for the debauchery that sort of, halfway happened in his bathroom. 

They slipped outside together. He looked up from his phone to smile at her. “I have an uber on the way for you. I’ll make sure you get home safe, then I’ll head to my apartment.” 

She walked her fingers up his chest, tugging on his collar. “I mean, you _could_ do that.” 

He was biting the grin away from his lips. “Or?” 

_”Or_ you could just stay at my apartment… I mean, we both have to come back here to get our cars anyway, right?” She tugged lightly at one of his buttons, carefully avoiding his eyes. “Why pay for four uber trips when we only need to pay for two?” 

Jake hummed thoughtfully. “Okay, okay, I like where your mind’s at.” His fingers brushed against the thin strap on her shoulder. “But I wouldn’t want to impose. I can just stay on the couch.” 

She laughed. “Jake, we’ve _shared_ a bed before. What’s wrong, think you can’t handle it?” 

They’d been inching closer as they talked, and at this point, her lips were mere centimeters away from his. He licked his lips. “Can _you_ handle it?” 

She laughed softly. “Oh, don’t worry, Peralta. I can handle you, alright.” 

They were so busy kissing against the side of the building that they didn’t even notice the Uber pulling up. The entire ride to her apartment was filled with hushed laughter as she tried to inch her hands under his shirt and he tried to keep her hands a safe distance away. 

He teased her as she unlocked her door. “Drunk Amy is so much fun.” 

“Mmmm, I’d love to show you just how much fun drunk Amy can be.” 

Unlike last time they’d drunkenly stumbled into her apartment together, they actually made it all the way to her bedroom before they were all over each other. The night was a blur, making up for lost time with hands and lips that moved more quickly than he remembered. Her hair fanned out across her pillows, tangled from all the attention his fingers had given it. 

He missed this, wanted to remember it, his bleary, tipsy mind twisting the seconds together and god he _couldn’t_ forget how her lips felt on their way down his torso, couldn’t forget the way her eyes twinkled when she looked up at him, a teasing, questioning glance set in her eyes. They didn’t do this, shouldn’t do this, and yet his tongue was exploring skin he hadn’t tasted in weeks, his hands pulling her hips closer as his tongue rehearsed a dance he hadn’t been practicing, her accompanying song letting him know that he hadn’t forgotten any of the steps. 

He missed how eager she was, how even after his tongue left her shaking, her fingers locked into his hair, she was still intent on pushing him back against the bed, climbing onto his lap and using his chest as an anchor point, hands pressed firmly as she worked her hips into a rhythm on top of him. He missed the way she felt around him, missed the look in her eyes as she watched him fall apart underneath her, missed sharing her taste on their tongues as she sighed against his lips. 

Just being partners was stupid, he wanted her like this, wanted to hear her say his name like this, sounds all running together as she became more frantic, her grip tightening on his shoulders. He missed hearing her beg him to touch her, missed her satisfied gasp when he pushed her back into the mattress and took control of every movement, missed that final kiss, his hand on her jaw as he was sure he couldn’t hang on longer, their shared breaths and movements the only sound in the room until she broke the kiss, an impassioned, “Jake, fuck, _fuck!”_ rolling off of her tongue and pulling him right over the edge with her. 

And as he settled into the bed next to her, sweat cooling on their skin, he abruptly realized that he couldn’t just simply be her partner. 

It was one thing in the beginning, when they’d called it all off. They could stop sleeping together and be partners. That was fine. But they’d crossed a line. They hadn’t been partners, they had been acquaintances who slept together, occasionally bumped into each other at work. But now they _were_ partners, dare he say, even _friends_. The dynamic between them was completely different, and a drunken night landing them in bed together felt vastly different from the nights they’d spent together three weeks earlier. They weren’t acquaintances that slept together. They were partners and friends, who’d just stumbled into her apartment together and had sex so outrageously good that he wouldn’t be able to get it off of his mind for the next three days even if he _didn’t_ have to see her. 

But he _would_ have to see her, would have to work closely with her at work and how was he supposed to hear her say _Jake_ all innocently, or worse, _Detective Peralta_ , an edge in her voice where she’s trying to be professional when all he wants to do is pop the buttons off of her shirt and make her say his name properly? 

He pulled the sheet over her body, shaking his head and holding back a laugh at the way she was already settled sleepily into the mattress. He snaked the comforter around them, his arm resting over her waist as he settled in to sleep next to her. Apparently this was something they did, now. She invited him to stay over in her bed _because they’d shared a bed before_. And he could handle it, like he said. 

He was just drunk. His thoughts would be much clearer in the morning. Things felt so _spinny_ at the moment, even when he closed his eyes. He wasn’t _that_ drunk, he couldn’t figure out why everything felt so confusing. It wouldn’t be a problem. They could definitely go to work and nothing would be awkward and he wouldn’t be picturing her eyebrows pulling together the way they always did when she cried out his name. They wouldn’t have to talk about this, nothing had to change. They’d slept together before. This was just a minor slip-up. It only happened once, and it didn’t need to mean anything at all. He nodded to himself, feeling a little more relaxed when he rolled away from her and she sleepily chased after his warmth, wrapping her arm around him and snuggling into his back to spoon him. 

Cool, cool, cool. It was all cool. This was cool. Normal, it was normal. Cool. 

Before he had much more time to think through all of the aspects of the scenario, his eyes were drifting shut, and he was sleeping, Amy Santiago’s little spoon. 

He woke up before her, her forehead pressed into the middle of his back and an arm still thrown over his side. He was comfortable and content, but he was immediately aware of a problem that he was hoping he wouldn’t have to face.

He didn’t feel any differently than he had the night before. 

How was he supposed to go to work with her and then just go home and not see her again until they were at work again? How was he supposed to focus on their case when her collarbone peeked out of her blouse when she leaned over his desk to point at whatever he was doing on his computer? And he––what, wasn’t going to be able to kiss her? This was the misstep, this was the irregularity, and his routine _didn’t_ involve making her fall apart for him. How the hell could _that_ make sense? 

How was he supposed to navigate this situation _knowing_ that she wanted him just as badly as he wanted her? Rules and secrets aside, he hypothesized that the second they broke out the alcohol, they’d end up together. But what about all the sober moments? Did she think about him as much as he thought about her? Did she almost send him a text when things were particularly stressful? Did she ever contemplate reaching across the center console and kissing him in the squad car, the way he’d thought about doing to her when they’d been in the car for hours and the sun hit her just right and _god_ , she was pretty… 

If she didn’t, then fine. It would all be fine. He’d get over it. 

But if she _did_... 

Why are they avoiding each other when they could have _this?_ Nothing too crazy, just like before. No strings attached, no stress, no complications. Something to take their minds off of the bad stuff, something to help keep them focused on their work during the day instead of their proximity. He’d probably spend much less time thinking about the way her fingers brushed against his when she handed him her gun to inspect if it hadn’t been the only physical contact they’d had in weeks––if it hadn’t been _so clearly_ electric for her, too. He saw her fingers twitching in her lap after they’d touched, caught the expression that flashed across her face in just a fraction of a second. It couldn’t just be him that wanted this. 

She stirred next to him, her hand slipping under the blanket and pressing flat against his thigh as she stretched. She hummed against his back, fingers pressing close to his skin as she slid her grip back to his waist. She sighed softly, her breath tickling his back, and he wished he could just stay in this moment, live here long enough to make it really feel like home. 

“You awake?” Her voice came abruptly, but he could almost feel her lips against his skin, which was even more startling.

“Hmmm?” 

He frowned when she slid her hand away from his waist, pushing herself up so that she could look around him to see his face. “I was thinking maybe I would go in and get a start on the Easton case.” 

He turned his head so that he could look at her more fully. “Right now?” 

Her eyes searched his face for a moment. “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking. You game?” 

“Uh… We’re not gonna…?” He trailed off, the question clear in his voice. “You don’t want to, like, talk? About this?” 

She shrugged her shoulders. “What’s there to talk about? We broke a rule. It’s still new, we’ll be better next time.” 

Jake hummed in agreement. Except that, as much as he hated talking, he actually had a lot he wanted to talk to her about. Like, for example, did she wake up in the middle of the night from dreams that felt way too real, then get confused when his hands weren’t rubbing slow trails across her skin? He had those dreams. Way more frequently than he’d like, influenced by the ways that they interacted during the day at work. 

And they’ll be better next time? At sex? At not having sex? He wasn’t sure he wanted to be better at not having sex with her, wasn’t sure they could possibly be better at sex if they tried. 

“Right. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.” He pushed himself out of the bed, quickly locating and pulling on his clothes. “I’ll just, uh…” 

“Are you leaving?” She sat up in bed, looking at him with a look he couldn’t quite place. “I thought we were sharing an uber back to our cars.” 

“Oh. Yeah, right. You’re right, sorry. Must just be tired. You know I’m not used to being up this early.” 

She narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re not used to being up at 10am?” 

“Not on our day off.” 

She hummed. “Alright, well I’m going to take a shower real quick… You want to join me?” 

Jake tilted his head. “I’m sorry, I don’t think I understand…” Amy waited patiently for him to continue. He scratched the back of his neck. “Didn’t we call this whole thing off?” 

“You mean sex?” 

Jake looked at her stupidly. “...Yes?” 

She stood in the doorway to her bathroom, and he tried not to let his eyes stray away from her face, even when he thought she was trying to draw his attention elsewhere. “I just figured since you’re still here, we could count this as part of last night.” She shrugged. “You know, like when an earthquake has aftershocks.” 

A joke flickered through his brain, but he chose to keep it to himself. He shook his head. “Uh, I’ll just wait in the living room, if that’s cool.” 

“Oh.” Her voice was a bit higher than before. She nodded, avoiding his eyes. “Sounds good, I’ll see you out there.” 

He spent way too long stressing about the way her voice had peaked when she replied to him. _Oh. Sounds good._

He had just been thinking about how it would make more sense for them to keep seeing each other, to keep the casual thing up between them, but then she asks him to have sex and he immediately says no. What kind of sense did that even make? He imagined that it was probably even more confusing for her than it was for him. 

Maybe he should’ve just showered with her. It was their day off, they could have taken their time. They didn’t even _have_ to go in. She was right, this morning was an extension of the night before, it wasn’t breaking rules anymore than they already had. 

God, listen to him. Since when did he care about breaking rules, anyways? He didn’t care about _rules_.

He kind of cared about Amy’s rules. He cared that she cared about rules. He wasn’t sure what to do with that information. 

But it didn’t matter. It was too late, he’d already said no. And he could tell by the way she’d replied that he had just made things exponentially more awkward between them. She probably wanted to know _why_ he said no, and truthfully, he didn’t have an answer. 

Or maybe he was thinking too far into things. Maybe she didn’t care at all. Maybe she didn’t even mean anything by it, maybe she was just offering him a chance to shower before they went to work. Maybe she didn’t even mean sex. 

His mind went back to the first time he’d stayed at her apartment, the way she talked him through what she wanted him to do to himself in the shower, the way that he was a little bit nervous when she’d made the suggestion, but he warmed to the idea so quickly with her voice in his ear. He was pretty certain that she meant sex. 

But it was fine that he said no. Obviously. They’d both said no in the past, varying circumstances––typically more of a _I can’t come over right now_ , not a _I’m already naked and in your bedroom but I’m gonna get dressed and go sit on your couch instead of fucking you_.

Yeah. He’d made things even weirder than they were before. That much was clear. And for what? It’s not like he didn’t want to have sex with her. Even in the moment, immediately after saying no, he didn’t not want to. He didn’t even understand why he said no. He was trying to decide if he’d be feeling better or worse if he had gone in there with her. He had to assume he’d be feeling better than this. 

He was torn away from his thoughts when she walked into the room. She didn’t look up at him when she walked in. “You ready? I already called the Uber.” 

He cleared his throat, making sure to avoid looking directly at her, too. “Uh, yeah.” 

He stood awkwardly behind her as she twisted the lock on the door. She shifted, turning on her heel to head back toward the kitchen, but Jake was standing too close behind her. She bumped into him, her side colliding with his chest. He grabbed her lightly, steadying her, and his hands hesitated on the back of her arms before he let them drop back to his side. He stepped back, out of her way. 

“Sorry, I––”

“Forgot my phone––”

They both smiled tightly, once again avoiding one another’s gazes. 

“Sorry,” Amy murmured. 

The ride to the bar was even more uncomfortable, a thick silence settling between them. He pictured fog so thick that he couldn’t even see through it. That’s what being in the car with her was like. She was right there, but it was like there was a hazy fog between them. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been this quiet. Maybe seventh grade, when he got caught skipping class and his mom glared at him at every stop light all the way back home. She’d had to leave work to come pick him up, and he was grounded for _three whole weeks_ , non negotiable. The most trouble he’d probably ever been in, and he could still remember the sinking feeling in his chest when she told him that she was disappointed in him for making bad choices. Why did he have a similar feeling now, at thirty-six, sitting in the back of an Uber next to his partner? 

It occurred to him as they settled in to work that maybe he was just imagining all of the tension between them. Maybe it wasn’t actually awkward at all. Maybe it was only weird because _he_ was being weird. But then he’d catch Amy glancing over at him, and as soon as his eyes would meet hers, she’d look away like she hadn’t even seen him. 

She didn’t speak to him at all, and no matter how many times he looked at her or caught her looking at him, he never saw a smile on her face. Granted, the case they were dealing with was particularly gruesome, but that had never stopped them from making the best of the situation before. He couldn’t find it in himself to crack ill-timed jokes and get her to roll her eyes at him, wasn’t sure if she’d even play along if he could conjure something up. 

And at the end of the night, when he found himself still in the precinct long after most of the squad had left, working tirelessly to keep his mind on work and off of his personal life, a new thought invaded his mind. 

Maybe he didn’t know _how_ to have casual sex. Maybe this had never really been that casual in the first place. Logistically, it was pretty casual. He shook his head to himself, perusing the evidence room for a particular box as he thought. It was definitely casual at first. They barely spoke outside of him teasing her with the soft kisses texts, and they usually fucked and said their goodbyes pretty quickly. 

Really, the only time that had felt a little confusing and disorienting was the previous night. They were friends now. He almost felt guilty for thinking about her in that way, but then… of _course_ he’s thinking of her in that way. That’s practically how they met. They’d been having sex long before they’d been partners and before this friendship began blossoming between them. And yet he still had the strangest feeling in his chest. 

Was it just disappointment? Guilt over feeling disappointed? He _was_ disappointed that they’d called off their arrangement, but it hadn’t been intolerable. He was glad that she was working at the nine-nine, enjoyed having her as a partner for the most part. He was enjoying getting to know her a little better outside of their previous arrangement. 

Maybe he felt guilty because it felt to him that _all he wanted_ from her was sex. That wasn’t true at all, though he could see how his mind would twist him into thinking that he felt that way. It was just that he’d become so reliant on her in the past few months. He really enjoyed the time they spent together, loved satisfying her and helping her to melt her stress away the same way she did for him. 

Stopping their relationship, for lack of a better term, was an adjustment for him. Three weeks wasn’t quite enough time for him to get used to not calling her when he needed her. He understood why she didn’t want to continue the relationship, and he respected it, and they had been doing great as just partners. It was easy enough to keep his thoughts and desires to himself. 

But that was when he thought she had just shut it all off. 

Now that he knew there was more to it than that… 

He slammed his palm against one of the evidence boxes. This was so fucking stupid. He was in here, practically obsessing over her and this eerie feeling of discomfort (was it just discomfort over making her uncomfortable??? He still couldn’t fucking figure it out), and she probably didn’t even care at all. She was probably not even thinking about him, was probably still in the bullpen reading through their file for the umpteenth time and god damn it, Jake Peralta did _not_ get hung up on girls––especially not girls with whom he’d only had a casual thing. 

Although back to the casual thing… Maybe it was his lack of experience with casual relationships that left him feeling like he was treading water in the middle of the ocean with sharks circling him. He’d dated around, sure, had the occasional one night stand, but nothing quite like this. This wasn’t dating, this was simply sex. There was no precursor, no show of impressing and playing games, just plain and simple, _I’ll be over in two hours and you better already be hard for me_ (an actual thing she had said to him, mind you). 

“Jake?” 

He turned around at the sound of her voice, already shrinking timidly at the premise of being caught sulking in the evidence room. Had she just walked in, or had she been there for the smacking the box incident? 

Before he could reply or further stress over the matter, she was colliding with him. 

He accepted her, surprised, but willing as her arms wound around his neck, her lips soft and warm on his. His hands caught up with him after a moment, gently gripping her waist and sliding up to pull her closer to him. She pressed her palm to the back of his neck, her fingers trailing lightly into his hair. 

He laughed softly when she broke the kiss to catch her breath. They leaned their foreheads together. “What was that?” 

“Uhm…” She trailed off, pulling away from him and straightening her posture, adjusting her shirt. “Sorry, I…” Her eyebrows pulled together, and he was fairly certain that his expression mirrored hers. “I’ve just been thinking about doing that all day, and I don’t know if that’s okay with you, I know this morning…” 

He shook his head. “It’s okay with me.” 

“Oh. Okay. Yeah…” She nodded again. “I, uh…” She turned toward a box, shuffled with the top to give herself something to do while she spoke. “I want to start––I don’t know… sleeping together again?” 

He laughed. “At work?” 

“What? No, I––” She paused when his laughter doubled. “You’re joking, okay. Uh, no, I just… I’ve been thinking about it _all the time_ , and I thought it would be better if we stopped, but maybe it’s better for our work if we just get it all out of our system, right?” She looked seriously at him, and when he took a moment without replying, she started back up again. “I mean, I don’t know about you, but I’ve been distracted, like, a _lot_ , lately. And with basically everything in my life changing and shifting around, maybe it would be better if I did get to keep one constant thing in it.” 

“Aww, me?” 

She rolled her eyes. “You know what, nevermind.” 

He laughed, pulling her wrist so that she was back against his chest. “Just casual?”

“Yeah, of course, just casual. Just sex.” 

He stared into her eyes for a long moment. “Okay.” 

“Okay?” 

“Yeah, okay. But you can’t kiss me at work, Santiago.” He shook his head at her, clicking his tongue disapprovingly. “How unprofessional of you.” 

Her eyes narrowed, her lips slipping apart as she looked at him in shock. He leaned in to press a quick kiss against her lips, then ducked in to whisper in her ear. “Be at my apartment at nine. We’ve got three weeks of lost time to make up for.” 

She raised her eyebrows at him, but she looked more than interested. 

He avoided her eyes for a whole different reason when they made it back out into the bullpen. He could feel her eyes glued to his every move, and he was loving it. 

This was it. They were friends, and they were going back to fucking each other. If you would have told him the first time he’d seen Amy Santiago that this is where they’d be months later, he wouldn’t have believed it. 

They were friends with benefits. He poked his tongue into his cheek at the thought, remembered that she was sitting across the desk from him, watching. He met her eyes, and yeah, she had _definitely_ been watching. 

He was going to make sure she benefited tonight.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> these dummies can't leave each other alone i swear pff


	5. don't blink or you're gonna miss it

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hi there
> 
> don't be disappointed but welcome to what is currently (and maybe entirely) the only chapter in this fic that doesn't contain smut. 
> 
> chapter title from Go Radio's It's Not a Trap, I Promise. 
> 
> I'm too sleepy to go through the lyrics but I wanted this chapter out so we can get into some more intense stuff in the future chapters wahooooo have fun.

They say there’s a first time for everything.

There was the first time he saw her, some two years earlier at some work-sponsored event. He caught a two-finger wave from Diaz, across the room during some forgettable speech, and that’s when he saw her. He wished he had more details to offer, but his goldfish memory only retained the way her hair shone under the fluorescent lighting, her eyes glinting as she laughed at whoever she was talking to. Rosa came by to say a quick hello after the speeches, but the mystery woman with the soft curls and the pretty smile wasn’t with her. He didn’t ask about her. Why would he? 

He noticed her, after that. He didn’t see her often, but when he did, he was entirely too aware of her presence. He saw her at Cop Con during the previous year, actually beelined straight for her, but was intercepted by an old partner. It seemed like something always happened to stop him from making his way over to introduce himself. 

Until, of course, they ran straight into each other the following year. 

He couldn’t have planned it better if he tried. He hadn’t seen her there, much to his disappointment. He’d run into Diaz earlier in the night, and there was no sign of her. They were almost always together when he saw her, and with a bit of disappointment, he quickly accepted that she just wasn’t there. Perhaps she no longer even worked in the NYPD. For all he knew, she was a dirty cop. That was a pretty fun story that he made up on the spot, at least. Yeah, he’d never get to talk to her like he always pictured doing when she caught his eye at these stupid events, but it was probably for the best, anyway. She was pocketing drugs from criminals, distributing them herself, and god knows that only made her hotter. He couldn’t have been in the face of that temptation, anyway. He’d never have been able to say no when she inevitably asked him to join her scheme, and he didn’t really want to be on the other side of the law. He much preferred being a McClane, even if Gruber _was_ a ridiculously pretty woman he’d had no luck in talking to. 

He’d completely forgotten about both the mystery woman and her invented criminal history. He was pretty tipsy, more than a few drinks in when Charles suggested that he didn’t _care_ how many donut holes Rosa had tossed at him throughout their time in the academy, there was _no way_ he could catch a peanut in his mouth from across the room. 

Jake had rolled his eyes at his friend. “You’re grossly underestimating my abilities.” 

“I would never underestimate your abilities!” Charles defended himself quickly. “Your mouth is amazing, and I’ve seen it do some very fascinating things.” 

Rosa, who hadn’t been formally introduced to Charles yet, made a face at him. 

“You have to know how that sounds, Boyle.” Jake shook his head, his eyes falling on Rosa’s easy smirk. “He hasn’t seen me do _those_ sorts of fascinating things.” He just shook his head again at her dry laugh, then turned back to Charles. “If you don’t believe me, then let’s try it. Throw a peanut into my mouth from across the room. I’ll catch it.” 

Charles tossed his hands up in the air. “No! No way. You know we’re too in sync, Jake. And she,” Charles, also pretty drunk, jabbed his finger in Rosa’s direction, “has had too much practice. If you’re going to do this, you have to choose a stranger.” 

“A stranger?” 

“Mhm.” Charles smiled proudly at this plan. “You pick _one_ stranger. And you get one try.” 

Jake cocked an eyebrow, already interested by the challenge. “And what do I get if I win?” 

Charles frowned, looking like he was really thinking hard about it. “Oh! If you win, you don’t have to come with me to that dinner party––”

“Oh, _deal_. Easy.” He clapped his hand on Charles’s shoulder. “Sorry to back out, but I never would’ve agreed to go if I had known they’d be serving those gross little wiggly squid things.” He cringed, noting that even Rosa looked horrified at that. 

Then he dipped his hand into a nearby bowl, stashing a few peanuts in his pocket before turning to face the room. He’d find who he was looking for, he just had to give himself a moment to _detect_. Ya’know, what detectives do. 

He was still _detecting_ when he happened upon a loophole. In honor of fairness, he decided he would ask Charles if he was allowed a practice shot with something other than a peanut, since he was only allowed one try with the peanut itself. He was turning to excitedly run to Charles when he slammed into her. 

That was absolutely the right word for it. He hit whoever it was very hard, and when he rushed to steady the person, he found his hands on hips that felt way too nice beneath his fingertips. He released her quickly, stepping back and showing his palms in a gesture of innocence. He was pleasantly surprised to see a familiar face, and he couldn’t believe that she was somehow even prettier up close. 

The firsts continued. The first time he made her laugh, pulling a peanut out of his pocket and offering it to her, an attached plea about his stupid, drunken bet. The first time they kissed, right outside the doors of that party. The first time they had sex, quite soon after that first kiss. The first time they argued (that following morning). 

The first time they hung out outside of work, alone, without having sex. 

_That_ was a new one. 

He’d been pacing around his apartment all morning, and he couldn’t quite describe the feeling in his chest. He knew exactly what caused it––the same thing that always caused this feeling. Person. He supposed his father shouldn’t be referred to as a _thing_ , though Roger acted like _he_ wasn’t a person, so why should he care how he internally refers to his father after yet another letdown, anyway? 

Every year, he tells himself that he’ll be better. 

This will be the last year that he lets Roger Peralta get to him. He’s said it every year for the past 29 years––not that he’s counting. He isn’t. He doesn’t even care. It’s fine. 

Every year, he’s wrong. 

He’s tired of pacing around alone, and he knows he shouldn’t but there’s only one person he wants to talk to. He takes out his phone, scrolling through his contacts and hoping that someone else’s name will pop out at him. 

Boyle would probably take him on some weird date with _his_ dad, and while the sentiment is so kind, seeing Charles and his dad doesn’t make him feel better, even when the two of them are both solely focused on making Jake feel like a part of their family. Gina’s been through this a hundred times, and though he knows she’s equipped to handle it, knows that she definitely cares about him enough to put up with year 29 of this shitty game, he also knows that she doesn’t want to deal with it. She has more important things going on. As much as he made jokes with Holt, he didn’t figure that he should bother his captain with trivial things like _hi, it’s me, your 36 year old employee and my dad hurt my feelings again, are you busy?_ He hovered over Rosa’s name for a moment. She wouldn’t want to talk about it. Maybe that was a good thing. She’d probably be down to go hang out at Shaw’s and drink in silence. That was probably his best move, right? 

He flicked the contacts list back up, landing comfortably on the first person in alphabetical order. 

_Ames._

He shouldn’t text her right now. 

He just isn’t in the right headspace for it. He doesn’t want sex. That’s what her number was in his phone for. He was supposed to text her when he was horny, not when he was heartbroken. 

He groaned loudly, flopping over onto his couch as if he were six years old again, throwing a tantrum about not being allowed to stay up to watch another episode of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. 

He flickered over his options for a moment, trying to decide what the best move was. He’d been spending too much time with Amy. There was already an organized list in his mind, Santiago Stylez. 

What was the worst that could happen if he texted her? He got his feelings hurt? News flash, Jake. Your feelings are _already_ hurt. What’s the best that could happen if he texted her? He wasn’t sure. Maybe she came over to just hang around, to distract him from the day. They _were_ friends now, they’d agreed on this together. 

So he sighed to himself, scrolling back to her name and clicking on her before he had an opportunity to change his mind. 

**Jake Peralta:** can u come over

There. He did it. He texted her, and the ball was in her court. He’d done all that he could. He set the phone down on the couch cushion next to him, face down. He had decided that he was going to leave it there and go to a different room so that he didn’t fixate on whether or not she was going to text him back, but before he had a chance to stand up, she had already replied. 

**Ames:** I’m on my period. 

He quirked an eyebrow. Didn’t seem related to the question at all. 

**Jake Peralta:** ? so can u come over or not 

Three little dots appeared, then disappeared, then appeared again. She was taking a moment to reply, probably writing a fully annotated bibliography for her text or some other thing that only Amy Santiago would do. 

**Ames:** … Are you asking me to come over and give you head?

What???

 **Jake Peralta:** wut??? 

Why would she think––

Oh. _Oh._

Because they only hang out for sex. Obviously. He shook his head at himself, already trying to figure out how to backtrack without giving her too much insight into his situation. He didn’t want her to feel obligated to hang out with him because he was sad, or whatever. God, he shouldn’t have even texted her in the first place. 

**Jake Peralta:** oh. no. I just could use a friend

The two and a half seconds between sending that text and not receiving a reply seemed to drag by, and he found himself already adding onto the thought. 

**Jake Peralta:** nvrmind it was dumb u don’t have to sorry

Was he sweaty? He felt so fidgety. He was right before, what was the worst that could happen if he texted her? Turned out that he got a little sweaty, on top of his feelings being a little more on the hurt side. But it was fine! Nothing he couldn’t handle. 

He looked down when his phone vibrated. 

**Ames:** I’ll see you in a little while. 

Oh. _Oh._

Cool. 

This brought on a whole new spiral. What did that even mean? She was just? Coming over? To hangout? 

_You mean like you asked her to?_

They were friends. Friends hang out. _Normal!_ So normal. 

So why did it feel _so_ unnatural when she showed up on his doorstep? She had to have been feeling it, too. Her fingers bracketed her elbow, and she gave him a weak smile. 

“Sorry, I’m––” She gestured at herself, moving past him as he stepped to the side to let her into the apartment. “Ya’know.” 

He made a face at her. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” 

She shook her head. “I’m just a mess, is all.” 

She was right, technically. By Amy Santiago standards, she was a mess. Her hair was tossed up in a messy bun, a little too big, with loose curls poking out here and there. She still had her usual mascara across her already long lashes, but her eyes looked tired. In lieu of her typical pantsuit, she had on a pair of leggings, a pullover hoodie with a graphic that he couldn’t quite place. 

“You look great,” he commented honestly. She looked surprised at his words, and he turned to hide the heat that was suddenly rushing to his face. He hoped the tips of his ears didn’t give him away. 

“So,” she began quietly, pulling the blanket off the arm of his couch and curling into it until he was practically dying to join her, “what’s up?” 

He sat on the other end of the couch, pulling his feet up and facing her. He leaned his head on the back of the couch. “What’s up? Nothing, why do you ask?” 

She snuggled further into the blanket, and she looked so comfortable there that he had to look away for fear of a weird smile creeping onto his lips. “You needed a friend?” 

“Oh.” His voice went up an octave, and he cleared his throat to try to correct it. “That.” 

She waited a moment, silence swimming between them. “You don’t have to talk about it, if you don’t want to.” 

He nodded gratefully at her. “I thought maybe we could just watch a movie?” 

She hummed. “I’m not watching Die Hard.” 

He made a face at her. “Okay? Well I’m not watching Fargo.” 

“You _love_ Fargo.”

“Yeah, it’s the second-best cop movie of all-time. But I’m not watching it.” 

“Die Hard is––”

“The _first_ best cop movie of all-time? You’re absolutely right, thank you.” 

“Training Day is––you know what? I’m not having this argument again. No cop movies.” 

He scrunched up his nose, his hand smacking against his chest. “I’m sorry… No cop movies? Then what are we supposed to watch?” 

That’s how they ended up leaned into the back of his couch, Amy’s wide eyes set on him as he bounced through the entire first song on Tangled. 

_“And then I’ll read a book, or maybe two, or three_ ,” he elbowed Amy lightly in the side, slumping over so that his head was barely touching her blanket clad bicep, “sounds like you and Rapunzel would get along.” 

She laughed. “Yeah, she’s definitely my kind of princess.”

Jake choked on his abrupt laughter. “I’ll say. You see how she hits Flynn with the frying pan? Totally you.”

She turned so that she could flash him her best offended face. When she pulled back, he slipped from where he was leaning on her arm, landing somewhere closer to her lap. He pushed himself back up hurriedly, laughing through the movement. 

“The way you hit that perp on Flatbush the other day?!” His laughter interrupted his words, and he shook his head as he tried to compose himself. “Ames, you hit him with a construction cone––”

“It was the closest thing to me!”

“I was proud to be your partner.” 

She scoffed. _“Was?_ It was so bad that you’re not proud to be my partner anymore?” 

He shook his head, a smile still playing on his lips even after his laughter had faded. “I’m always proud to be your partner, Amy.” He looked away, his shoulders making quick work of shrugging up toward his chin, then relaxing again. “I was just _extra_ proud, then. Plus it was cool as hell to watch.” 

She grinned over at him. “Really?” 

He found his hand reaching for her thigh before he could catch himself. He squeezed her lower thigh gently. “Amy, yeah. Like, top ten coolest takedowns in the nine-nine. Which sucks because now I only have _nine_ of those ten.” 

She scoffed at him, but she laughed as she turned back to the movie. And yeah, he was right to text her. He felt a lot better now that she was here. 

He felt the urge to gravitate toward her throughout the movie, but he did a pretty good job of stopping himself. He felt her eyes on his during the lantern scene, and he was careful not to spare a glance in her direction. He sang bits and pieces of all the other songs, sometimes sprawling out in her lap and taking up her space until she laughed and shoved him away, but he stayed silent through this song. 

He couldn’t tell why she was looking at him. He couldn’t see her expression, but he _knew_ she was watching. Was she calculating? Trying to figure out why he wasn’t singing this song when he’d sang all the others? Was she watching for a reaction? Was he going to have one? 

He hadn’t anticipated her hand finding its way onto his knee, squeezing softly. He looked down at her hand, then looked up at her face. She offered him a gentle smile and squeezed his knee again. He nodded, his hand covering hers as he turned back to the screen. They stayed that way for a few minutes, and a frown only passed over his lips for a fraction of a second when she pulled her hand away. Then she was joking about the next scene, about _Flynn’s weird facial hair_.

“His name is _Eugene_ , Amy. Jeez.” Jake flipped his hand at her dismissively. 

Amy laughed, leaning back against the couch and poking Jake’s legs with her feet. “Well Eugene has stupid facial hair.” 

He scoffed at her. “Yeah, you’re much more of a soul patch kind of girl, huh?” She made a face at him. “I can just see it in your eyes. You live for the patch.” 

She made a quiet sound of disgust. “Honestly, a soul patch might be better than whatever Eugene has going on.” 

“I’m going to grow mine just like that, just for you.” 

Her laughter doubled. “You can’t grow facial hair.” 

He slid to the other side of the couch, his jaw dropped and his eyebrows pulled together. “Wow, Amy. Can’t believe you would hit me where it hurts like that.”

He was more than surprised when she dove after him, hovering over where he was at. She leaned in close, her hands tracing up his sides, and then her lips were so close to his, but not quite touching. “I think you’ll live.” 

His breath hitched at the rhythmic quality in her voice. He shook his head, his eyes on hers. “I really don’t know if I will.” 

She grinned at him, her hand traversing his side, sliding up to lie flat against his chest. Her little giggle let him know that she could feel his heartbeat thumping there. Not quite too fast, but faster than a few moments before. 

His fingers were tentative as they found her waist. He toyed with the hem of her shirt lightly, his eyes flicking down to watch the movement instead of staying trained on her face. When he felt the little rush of her breath against his lips in a soft exhale, he experimentally let his palm slide flat up the back of her shirt, pressing lightly against the small of her back. She let herself be guided by his gentle touch, and before he knew it, instead of hovering over him, she was lying against his body, fitting into the valley between his legs, her eyes still on his face. 

He swallowed thickly, felt the urge to do it again when she laughed at him. 

“You can kiss me, Jake.” 

He nodded at her, but made no move to do it. He was painfully aware of their position, knew that they definitely weren’t having sex today––said less than two hours earlier that he didn’t even _want to_ , though his opinion was slightly different with her leaning against his chest, the intoxicating scent of her hair invading his thoughts. He also knew what kissing her was like, knew exactly what it would do to him when she hummed against his lips, her fingers dragging through his hair… Even just the thought of it was enough to make him shiver. Her body was flat against his, her belly fitting comfortably between his hips, but he knew it was going to be a lot less comfortable for both of them if things got a little too heated and the desire for her that seemingly never went away presented itself in a more physical way. 

His voice was a little raspy when he spoke. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.” 

Her fingers traced against his chest. “Neither do I.” 

Yet neither of them moved. It felt like an hour had passed, though he knew it had probably only been two minutes, both of them looking at each other, lips centimeters apart, daring the other to close the distance. A sound in the movie caught Amy’s attention, and she turned her head. 

“You know, I’ve never seen the end of this movie.” 

Jake gasped. “Never? Oh my god, what are you doing trying to kiss me then? We have to watch it.” 

Amy scoffed. He expected her to sit up, but instead, she just leaned her head against his chest, right in the same spot her hand had been in. He was sure that his heart hammering in his chest was distracting for her, but if it was, she didn’t say anything. She just played with the edge of his shirtsleeve, and after a moment, he settled his other hand around her waist and turned to pay better attention to the movie. 

Soon his heart rate returned to normal. He actually managed to relax, even when she laughed and startled him, even when her fingers found their way up to his collarbone and traced it slowly. 

“I can’t believe _you_ have seen this movie.” 

Jake stared at her, waiting for her to return his gaze. She laughed at his offended expression when she finally did. “Okay, first of all, I contain _multitudes_ , Amy. Layer upon layer.” He smiled, a too-wide grin that hurt his cheeks. He had way too much fun making her laugh. “But honestly, Charles made me watch it for a guys’ night once. I liked it a lot, loved the soundtrack… And here we are.”

“If it’s that good, I should probably pay better attention, huh?” 

And then she shifted back onto his chest to watch the movie. If he didn’t specifically know better, he might not even know that there was anything strange about this. It felt normal, which was super strange for something that was admittedly not normal _at all_. Hanging out with Amy was doing exactly what he needed it to do. He’d almost entirely forgotten about his father.

Then they got to the Scene™. 

Jake rolled his eyes inwardly for even choosing this movie in the first place, knowing damn well what would happen at the end of the movie. Rapunzel and Flynn, standing at the edge of the balcony, her parents opening the doors and seeing her for the first time. He stared up at the ceiling, anywhere but at the screen because he was already in a weird place, that’s why she was with him in the first place. He worked to not tighten the grip he had on her waist, tried to clench his jaw and just push through the stupid scene but each second brought with it another reminder that his own father had dropped the ball _again_.

And it was so stupid. He was a grown man, he shouldn’t be getting his feelings hurt by a man who has proven time and time again that he’s going to do what he always does. He was always in this weird purgatory, emotions he hadn’t worked through in his childhood that came back full force every time his father knocked on his door, left a voicemail from a new phone number he hadn’t bothered giving him, texted back with a _who dis?_

But he always gave him another chance. He wanted a relationship with the man, had wanted it from the time he was very young. He had a few memories of his dad actually being a present father, but when his father left his mother, he essentially left him, too. It hurt then, when he didn’t understand it at all. It still hurt now, when he understood that, realistically, it had nothing to do with him. He hadn’t done anything wrong when he was seven years old. Nothing he did then, and likely nothing he does now will ever change the way that Roger Peralta acts. 

So he pushed on with his days. He worked and he joked and he lived, because what else could he do? And when his father popped in, once or twice a year, he welcomed him with open arms. A trip to a fancy restaurant that Charles hesitantly recommended, a willingness to help no matter the situation he had backed himself into, and some misguided hope that when he promised to stay and get to know his friends, he actually meant it. And he was always left feeling the same way. Empty. Used. Alone.

It would be nice if just _once_ things could work out the way they do at the end of a Disney movie. It didn’t have to stay that way forever, but if just once Roger could live up to Jake’s expectations, if he could commit to a simple promise that he made to his son… Just once. 

And then Amy was looking up at him. He closed his eyes, like if he couldn’t see her then she couldn’t see him but he had nowhere to hide because she was pressed against his chest and she had a clear view of his face and the tension between his eyebrows as he fought the tears that were trying their hardest to fall. He hadn’t cried about this in years and he was _not_ about to start now, not in front of her. 

_Fucking Tangled._

For a second, the melodic sound of her laughter drew him out of it. Then he was taken back to where he was, aware that she was laughing at him, and he was feeling a new pang of unwelcome emotion. 

“Are you crying because of Rapunzel’s parents?” She laughed again, and despite how annoyed he was, a distant part of his brain wanted to hear the sound again. “It’s a happy scene, Jake.” 

He squeezed his eyes shut tighter, clenched his jaw again. He joked about crying all the time, even actually cried scarcely over work-related situations. It’s not that he wasn’t comfortable with himself, it was just that these were real emotions and they were deep and they were scary and they were _not_ something he should share with her. He was not going to _actually_ cry in front of her. He wasn’t. Especially not over his dad. That’s exactly what he needed, to cry about his dad with his… _whatever she was_ staring at him. 

“Hey…” Her voice was more concerned, now. She shifted against him, and even with his eyes closed he could tell that she was sitting up. “Are you okay? What’s going on?” 

He shook his head, but followed suit in sitting up with her. He took a deep breath, then shook his head again. FInally, he opened his eyes, glistening but not full of tears, and smiled at her. “Nothing’s wrong. Perfectly fine.” 

She looked at him suspiciously. “I can hear it in your voice. What’s going on?” 

He looked down at the couch, avoiding her gaze as best as he could. Then her hand was on his forearm and he looked down at it, eyebrows pulling together and he was moving before he even registered what he was doing. He pulled her into his arms, burying his head in her neck. She was stiff for a moment, but she quickly relaxed into him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, her fingers running up his neck and into the hair at the nape of his neck comfortingly. 

“Hey, it’s okay.” She held him, her fingers working gentle magic in his hair and distracting him enough that he managed to convince the threat of tears to subside. 

He hadn’t expected to attack her with this hug, but he really needed it. He also hadn’t expected her to be okay with it, much less for her to shift and pull him down on the couch with her, but that’s exactly what she did. She leaned into the pillows that he brought out there when she agreed to come over, holding him against her chest and continuing to murmur soft words into his hair. 

This was wrong. It had to be wrong. He couldn’t remember her making a rule explicitly against things like this, but he had to assume that it broke some sort of rule between them. He really did try to be respectful of her rules (mostly). Barring the soft kisses, which really was more of a joke than anything else (though he admittedly didn’t dislike them). 

But in this moment, it didn’t matter that it was probably wrong. She was holding him and hushing him as he held his breath. His face remained in her neck and he could feel each breath she took and it was grounding and relaxing and it quieted all the thoughts that tried to tell him he should move back to his corner of the sofa. Really, it was her fingers that did it, though. She twisted her fingers through his short hair, running her nails back and forth along his scalp, and by the time she shifted to get more comfortable, he was already gone. 

––

He inhaled deeply, twisting to adjust his position. He must have fallen asleep on the couch again. His back would be reprimanding him for that later. He hummed as he shifted, pressing his face further into the pillow in a desperate effort to get comfortable, but he immediately stilled when the pillow murmured back at him. He opened his eyes a crack, acutely aware that the room was much darker than he expected it to be. Then her fingers started pushing through the curls at the crown of his head, and everything started creeping back to him. 

He pushed back enough that he could look at her. “Oh my god,” his voice came out way raspier than he thought it would, and she laughed softly. He cleared his throat. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to fall asleep.” 

She smiled easily at him. The light from the tv filtered onto her face, blanketing her in this faint, bluey glow. He’d recognized how beautiful she was more times than he could possibly count, but something about this moment struck him. She felt dream-like, and for a moment, he wondered if he was actually still asleep. He was lying almost entirely on top of her, his body fitted between her legs and his head now hovering above the spot where it had been resting on her chest. He shook his head when he realized that the pillow he’d been smashing his face into moments earlier actually wasn’t a pillow at all, and he was grateful that the darkness provided a little bit of a protection against the embarrassment that was likely making itself known in the warmth of his cheeks.

“The food is here,” she said softly, and then she smiled again and he _really_ must have been tired because why was her smile making his brain all hazy like this? He was looking at her, and he must have been wearing the confusion clear on his face because she cocked an eyebrow at him. “Jake?” 

“Oh––yeah, my bad.” He rolled off of her. She laughed as she stood up, and he tried to avert his eyes as she stretched in front of him. He pulled the pillow she was laying on against his chest. “Did you say food is here?” 

She turned back toward him. “Yeah, I ordered food.” She shrugged at him, touching her hair almost self-consciously. “I hope that’s okay. I know it’s against the rules, but I figured now that we’re actually friends and you know, we’ve eaten together at work so technically it’s not anything new… And I wasn’t sure what you wanted, so I just ordered some of my favorites but I’m pretty sure you’re going to like them, and––”

“Ames,” he interrupted her rambling, grinning way too big at her. “It’s fine. Falling asleep on you is probably against the rules, too. But I did that. Order all the food you want.” He paused, tilting his head like he was in thought. _“And_ you’re on your period and you’ve been, like, comforting me. You deserve comfort food.” 

She raised her eyebrows at him for a moment, seemingly questioning him. 

He shrugged. “You don’t grow up with Gina as a best friend and not get weirdly comfortable with all things woman.” 

She let one eyebrow relax so she was still raising one brow at him, but then she just shook her head and laughed. He stayed on the couch while she walked to the door to get the food. He needed a minute to pull himself together. What the hell was his deal, anyway? Invite her over and hold her hostage on the couch so he could use her as a pillow? They’d slept together a lot, had stayed the night at one another’s apartments a handful of times since she’d transferred, but somehow falling asleep with her in the middle of the day felt vastly different. Had she even slept at all? Would he feel better if she _did_ or if she didn’t?

She reappeared before he could get to the bottom of the endless bucket of questions in his head. She flicked on the lightswitch, murmuring an apology when he groaned in protest at the light change. “I’m sorry!” She set down a large paper bag and a drink carrier with two foam cups on his coffee table. “Figured it’d be easier to eat with the light on.” 

“You’re going to eat on the couch?” 

She made a face at him. “I know for a fact that you eat on this couch when you’re here alone.” She sat down next to him, opening the bag and beginning to pull things out. “Plus I figured it’d be more comfortable and…” She shrugged. “Like you said. I think we could both use comfort.” 

Oh. Right. He’d forgotten that part in all of the weirdness he’d woken up to. His dad. 

He cleared his throat, ready to focus on anything else. He clapped his hands together, turning his attention toward the boxes she was opening. “So, Amy Santiago. What are your favorites?” 

“Well.” She opened one box, pulling it into her lap so he could see into it. “This is from a Polish place a few blocks from my apartment. These are hands down the _best_ pierogies I’ve ever had.” She picked one up, handing it over to him. “Here, try one.” 

He accepted it and quickly popped the entire thing in his mouth, because it smelled _fantastic_ and also who was he to refuse the food she’d ordered to the house for them? He didn’t know a ton about pierogies, but he was pretty sure that if a better one than this existed, it should be kept away from him because he’d never stop eating them. He was nodding appreciatively as he finished chewing, but she was already opening the next box. 

“These are potato pancakes. Here.” She reached into the bag and pulled out two plastic forks, passing one to him. She scooped up her own bite first, and he took a moment to laugh at the way she practically moaned when she tasted it. 

“It’s good?” 

She rolled her eyes at him, then shoved the box closer to him as if she were saying _see for yourself_. He took a bite, then rolled his eyes back at her. He flopped back into the cushions when he finished chewing. “I need to come to you for all my comfort food needs.” 

“I’ve been telling you that I know everything.” She teased him, but he just reached for another bite of potatoes. “You haven’t even had the best part yet.” She raised her eyebrows, then set the box back on the table. She leaned forward and retrieved a foam cup, handing one to him before taking her own. 

“Coffee?” 

She shook her head. “Hot chocolate.” 

He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Okay, you maybe lost me. Pierogies and potato pancakes and _hot chocolate?”_

“Try it. You’ll see.” 

She stared at him, waiting for him to try it before she would take a sip of her own drink. He shook his head. “Only because you’ve been right about the last two things.” 

She laughed as soon as he took a sip. He set the cup down, raising his hands up at her like he was trying uselessly to piece together the mystery of the situation. “How? I never would’ve thought to order any of these things together.” 

Amy shrugged. “My Abuelo used to take us there when I was a kid.” She pulled the boxes back over to them, began picking through the pierogies to find the perfect one. “Sometimes I think I just love this place so much because of the nostalgia of it all.” She offered a sort of melancholy smile, still looking down at the food. “I’m glad to see it’s not just me.” 

Jake picked at a potato pancake. “Yeah. I get it. My Nana and I were really close. I have tons of stuff that reminds me of her. A lot of it isn’t even half as good as this food, but…” He shrugged. “It was ours. And I love it.” 

She smiled over at him. “Is that what’s going on with you? Something to do with her?” 

Jake looked back down, his fork stilling in his hand. 

“I’m sorry. I’m overstepping, I shouldn’t… You don’t have to talk about it.” She reached over and set a hand on his shoulder, and he turned to look at the abrupt movement. “But if you ever want to, you can talk to me. Just so you know.” 

He looked back down, and she removed her hand from his shoulder in favor of reaching for her cup. 

“It’s, uh… my dad.” His words seemed to cut through the silence in the room. For some reason he felt on edge when she set her cup back on the table, turning to face him as though she was giving him her full attention. She wiped her hands on a napkin and added the box in her lap back to the table, shifting to fold her leg underneath her body as she looked at him. He kept the potato pancakes in his lap, something for him to do with his hands while he spoke. “I, uhm…” He shook his head. “It’s really so stupid. He, ya’know, left when I was a kid. And he’s never really been a great father.” 

Amy nodded, interrupting quietly. “You got him out of trouble with the Canadian police, right?” 

Jake looked up at her. He’d mentioned that to her one time. The NYPD Christmas party. And she was already drunk when he’d said it. “You remember that?”

She shifted under his gaze, but didn’t look away. “It felt important.” 

He nodded at her, then took a moment to swallow. “Yeah. Well, stuff like that is basically the norm. I don’t hear from him for most of the year, then he comes around when he needs something. And every time, he pretends he wants a relationship. And every time, I fall for it because I’m pathetic or something.” She listened quietly while he furrowed his eyebrows at himself. “Like, I’m 36, ya’know? Eventually I have to just grow up and get over it, right?” He sighed. “The thing is, I always say that I’m going to be better. But I never am. It’s the same every single time.” 

She was quiet for a moment. He wasn’t feeling super hungry anymore, but he reached over and grabbed a pierogi anyway. 

She sighed deeply. “Here’s what I’m wondering… Why is the blame on you?”

He scrunched his eyebrows together. “It isn’t.”

“Then why do you say it like that?” She stared at him, waiting for a response, but he didn’t understand what she was asking. She shook her head. “You said you always say that _you_ will be better.” She shrugged. “But you’re not the one who needs to be better. You’re already good.”

He blinked at her. “I don’t know if I understand what you’re saying.” 

“I’m _saying_... Your dad is the one that needs to do better.” She shrugged. “And from being around you, I know that you still have a _lot_ of work to do in the growing up department––”

“Hey,” he whined softly, but he grinned at her when she gave him the look he was expecting. 

“But… Having feelings about all of this isn’t something you’ll just grow out of, Jake. It’s normal for something like that to hurt you.” 

He looked at her like he wasn’t quite sure what to say next. 

“I mean…” She was trying to gain some ground to make him feel a little more comfortable. “My mom basically makes me the worst version of myself. I don’t even know if I know what it is. It’s like the second we’re together, everything’s a fight.” She picked up another pierogi, offering it to him. “Parents do that kind of thing, I think.” 

Jake shrugged, taking the pierogi from her hand. “If I ever have kids, I’m gonna make sure I don’t do stuff like this to them.” He nibbled at the corner of his food. “Not that I think I’m going to.” He laughed quietly, bitterly. “A dad with daddy issues. Every kid’s dream.” 

She laughed with him. “I mean, hey. I’m definitely not any kid’s dream mother. But I want to have kids one day. You know, when I find the right person, and I have everything figured out at work.” 

“When you’re _Captain_ Amy Santiago?”

She grinned at him. “Doesn’t have a bad ring to it, does it?”

“It sounds so good that I honestly don’t know why they don’t just make you a captain right now.” He shoved the box of potato pancakes in her direction. She hadn’t eaten any since her first bite. 

She picked up a potato pancake with her fork, pulling it into the box closer to her. She looked at Jake as if he’d just said the dumbest thing she’d ever heard. “I haven’t even taken any of the tests, Jake. Don’t be ridiculous.” 

They talked and joked while they finished their food, and before he knew it, it was already 10pm. She yawned, stretching out against the couch for a moment. 

“I think maybe I should head home. It’s getting kind of late.” 

He nodded. “Yeah, yeah.” He helped her to grab the empty boxes, then followed her to his kitchen to throw everything away. Sometimes he thought she knew his apartment even better than he did. She had no problem moving about his place fluidly. She knew where everything was, wasn’t shy about locating her favorite blanket on the few times that she’d stayed over. Even if that favorite blanket was in the living room or in his bedroom closet or––as had been the case last time––in the dryer, already warm for her because he had realized that it was her favorite and he thought she’d like it even more straight out of the dryer. 

In some ways, their friendship still felt so new. There were often lulls in conversation that felt less than comfortable, a thick silence between them that they didn’t know how to fill without the help of a joke or a kiss or a sexually charged comment. Other times, it felt like he’d known her forever. They had gotten into a really great rhythm at work. He could anticipate her moves better than any partner he’d ever had before, and he wished he could figure out why that was.

He leaned against the doorway of the kitchen as he watched her put on her shoes. “You need me to take you home or anything?” 

She smiled at him. “No, thanks. I drove today.” 

He nodded. “Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. No doubt, no doubt.” 

She looked over at him curiously, but thought better of asking anything about it. When she finished tying her shoes, she stood up straight and turned back toward him. 

“Hey, Jake?” He stared at her, silently waiting for her to continue. She looked down at the floor, seemingly self-conscious. “Thank you. For telling me all of that. I know you didn’t have to do that. But I’m glad you trust me enough to.” 

He laughed, but he was looking back down at the floor again. “No problem. I mean, I feel like I kind of owed you an explanation after I trapped you on the couch to sleep on you for hours.” 

Her shoes stepped into his line of sight, and he slowly followed them up to find her standing right in front of him. “It really wasn’t that long. And you didn’t owe me anything. Thank you, Jake. Seriously.” 

“Thanks for being here.” He gestured around. “You didn’t have to come at all. I’m glad you did.” 

“Title of your sex tape.” 

He scrunched his eyebrows up, then tilted his head as he thought over his words. 

“You Didn’t Have to Come At All. I’m Glad You Did. Title of your sex tape.” She repeated herself, an easy smirk stretching its way across the lips that he suddenly _really_ wanted to kiss.

He blinked at her, speechless. “Wow.” 

She laughed. “But seriously. It was nothing. That’s what partners are for, Peralta.”

He grinned back at her, a strange rush of emotion coursing through him. “Yeah. Partners.” 

He tucked the desire to kiss her away, somewhere that it couldn’t bother him for the moment. She looked like she was going to lean in to hug him, but then at the last second, she took a step back and extended her hand for him to shake. He looked down at her hand, but awkwardly accepted it for a handshake. 

She smiled at him. “See you at work?” 

“See you at work, Ames.” 

“Have a good night.” 

“Drive safe.” 

And then she was out the door. 

And then he watched as she drove away.

And then he was alone in his apartment and _what the hell just happened?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> realized i don't ever use summaries in the summary line. what's a summary anyway who knows not me okay goodnight 
> 
> comment on this so i have the will to live thanks


	6. nothing comes as easy as you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> not sure if I've ever done a Fall Out Boy title before which feels very out of character for me, so here ya go. 
> 
> Chapter title from Fall Out Boy's Nobody Puts Baby in the Corner. 
> 
> _Keep quiet, nothing comes as easy as you,_   
>  _Can I lay in your bed all day?_   
>  _I'll be your best kept secret and your biggest mistake,_   
>  _The hand behind this pen relives a failure every day._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a healthy dose of smut and feelings for ya in a much faster deadline than I've been meeting lately!! wow. ¨̮

One step forward, fifteen steps back. 

That’s what it felt like with her. He wasn’t sure what he’d done wrong. Had he done anything wrong? They’d barely spoken outside of work since the night that he was left in his apartment tracing out the map of the day and trying to figure out where things went wrong. 

For a split second, a stupid moment fueled by the warmth that her friendship inspired in his chest, he wondered if perhaps nothing went wrong that day. What if something actually went _right?_

He immediately caught himself. What did that even mean? He didn’t like her like that, their friendship hadn’t changed _that much_. Maybe there wasn’t anything particularly _wrong_ with the day, but it definitely wasn’t like something went _right_. Just the thought crossing his mind had to have broken a rule. 

Seeing her at work only sent him doubling down on his decision that something had definitely gone wrong. She had really helped him to feel better that day, and he had a pretty hard time reckoning with that particular fact. He shouldn’t have asked her to come over. It was selfish. She came because she’s a good person, a good partner, a good friend. But he hadn’t thought about what asking her to be his friend outside of work might cost them in other parts of their relationship. 

Sure, he wasn’t a financial expert (what’s the opposite of that, actually? That was probably him.), but it didn’t take an economist to understand cost and benefit. He asked her to come over, just to sit with him through the shit he was going through. The benefit was that she helped him to feel better. The cost, apparently, was all other contact with her outside of her extremely professional attitude toward him at work.

See, typically they texted each other every few days (nights… even once in the morning), but since that had happened, she hadn’t texted him at all. He had texted her three separate times, but each time she said she was unavailable. Which would have been fine, except that then she went on to over explain why she couldn’t make it and each explanation felt way too specific to have been real. 

She was avoiding him. 

He actually texted her about it once. A quick _did I do something wrong?_ She read it and didn’t reply. And really, that was all the response he needed, wasn’t it? 

He scoured over all the memories of the day, trying to figure out exactly where it had gone wrong. She seemed perfectly fine when she left, albeit the handshake was a little on the strange side. Not that out of the ordinary for her, he supposed. Had something happened between her walking out the door and when he stepped into the bullpen on Monday? 

She didn’t look up at him when he sat down across from her. When he greeted her with a _morning, Ames,_ her response was a curt, “Detective Peralta.” He made a few jokes that he was sure would normally make her laugh, but she never looked up at him. Her fingers were busy with her keyboard, her eyes scanning between her screen and the case file in front of her. But they were working a case _together_. They hadn’t had any big breaks, there was no new evidence. They were waiting on a call from the medical examiner that hadn’t come yet, so what was all this work she was so busy with, anyway? 

His days were usually filled with endless banter with her, but he found himself going to Rosa and Charles when he wanted to talk. Talking to her was like talking to a brick wall. He tried to talk to Gina about it, but when she asked about Amy and he insisted that nothing had happened, she built up a cubicle out of empty boxes from recycling. She hung a little sign on the side of it that said _anti-Jake Peralta zone_ with a smaller line underneath reading _aka fake friends_. He rolled his eyes at her. He wasn’t going to talk about the non-problem that he and Amy were or weren’t having. Gina would be over it in a few days. 

Six days into the cold shoulder, they assisted on that case where Charles jumped in front of a bullet for Rosa (yeah, a lot had been going on) so Charles was out of commission and with no one else to turn to, Rosa quickly grew tired of his constant chattering, which left him with a handful of very unappealing options. 

He could just… _be quiet_. But that obviously wasn’t gonna work for him. How was he supposed to get through the day without anybody to talk to? He wasn’t even sure how long this would last. He was just supposed to be quiet indefinitely? Unlikely. 

He could go bother Holt, but he was pretty certain that would end with him getting extra paperwork duty or organizing the evidence lock-up or something and he might prefer to sit quietly rather than doing either of those things.

He could talk to Hitchcock and Scully… He wanted to avoid the fourth option so much that he actually contemplated this, but on his way over to the break room, he saw Scully lift his foot onto the table and begin taking his shoe off. So that was a non-starter (and also, an added mental note to never eat at those tables again). 

So the only other option he could really see… was to confront her. Face to face, where she couldn’t ignore him quite so easily. 

He thought that he’d worked himself up to it, but when he marched back to his desk and sat down, every point that he’d thought of evacuated his mind. He stared blankly at the top of her head, because she was looking down at something––anything that wasn’t him. 

He spent the next week pretty quiet, though it didn’t feel that quiet to him. The case they were working on involved a pretty big drug bust, so they kept busy. He noticed her looking up at him more frequently during the long bouts of silence in their collective space, especially so during trips to and from crime scenes in the patrol car. He didn’t start conversations or make jokes when he noticed her eyes wandering toward him. If he looked directly at her, she turned her head like she hadn’t been looking at him. Why should he even bother?

He spent more time bothering Rosa than she preferred, but as much as she threatened him, she never actually hit him. He would’ve been perfectly content bothering Rosa for the rest of forever, but then she interrupted him mid-story to say just about the worst thing she could have said to him. 

“Why don’t you just grow up and go talk to her?” 

His face wrinkled before he even realized he was doing it. “Okay, I’m plenty grown, _Rosa_. I buy fruit cereal instead of the kind that turns your milk chocolatey.” She blinked blankly at him. “Talk to _who?”_

She glared at him, that signature shooting daggers straight through his skull look that he had grown accustomed to in the academy. “I don’t know what happened, but you’re both being dumb.”

“Nothing happened.” He started pushing around the pencils in a cup on her desk, yanking his hand back to his body when she smacked it away. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. We’ve been working together just fine. Did you see how fast we closed that Nelson case last week? And that was in the middle of that whole Charles getting shot in the ass situation.”

She didn’t take her glare off of him. “Yeah, you’re closing cases so quickly because you’re not spending all that time talking and joking like you normally do. Great for your cases––”

“Exactly! We already closed cases quickly and now we’re basically unstoppable––”

 _“Terrible_ for my cases. I can’t think with you over here talking about––”

“Well just tell me about your case and I can help with––”

 _“Stop_ cutting me off. I don’t want your help. You’re an awful secondary, and you have your own cases. Go talk to her.” 

He rolled his eyes at the secondary comment, but he figured it wasn’t the time to push that matter. “There’s nothing to talk about, Diaz.” 

He jumped when she slammed her hands down, palm first, on her desk. “I don’t care if you talk to her. But stop talking to me. You can talk to me next week.” 

_“Next week?”_ His voice went up an octave. 

She rolled her eyes, excusing herself to some location that he knew better than to ask her about. “Be gone before I’m back.” 

That’s when the quiet really set in. He dedicated quite a bit of time to trying to figure out what he had done wrong to get such a serious freeze out from her. It wasn’t fair to call it a freeze out, really. She was being cordial. But he thought that they were becoming friends. He really liked being her friend. 

He really liked the benefits part, too. But that was much less important to him than the two of them being able to speak to each other at anything less than a professional level and joke like they had finally gotten around to doing. 

So he dedicated the next several days to figuring out exactly how to tackle the problem. Rosa was right. There was no way around it. He had to talk to Amy. They were partners, and while their work wasn’t suffering, he knew this wasn’t a sustainable way for partners to act. 

The thing that really bothered him wasn’t that she hadn’t given him a reason for all of this, though he had been dedicating way too much time to trying to figure out the cause on his own. What really bothered him was that she never said _anything_. If she didn’t want to sleep with him anymore, that was perfectly fine. She didn’t owe him an explanation. It seemed unreasonable to him that she wouldn’t even _tell him_ , though. 

And it wasn’t as though she’d simply stopped responding when he texted her a _you down to come over tonight?_ She’d cut him out completely, refusing to even entertain a conversation that wasn’t work related. Maybe she didn’t owe him an explanation for that either, but he thought he at least kind of deserved one. 

Maybe the explanation was as clear as he thought it was. They’d crossed a line at his apartment that day. In the moment, maybe she didn’t think it was that bad. But he’d spent a lot of time thinking about it, and each time he thought the situation over, it felt worse than the time before. 

The final straw came about two and a half weeks into the silence. They were seated next to one another at the ceremony where Charles was receiving a medal for taking a bullet for Rosa. They marched Sergeant Peanut Butter out to receive the _same_ medal that Charles was receiving. Jake laughed under his breath, and he waited for Amy to reprimand him in some way. 

But she didn’t. 

So he leaned closer to her, waited for her to look at him. When she finally did, eyebrows raised in question of why he’d been in her space for so long, he whispered, “If I said, ‘Why the long face?’ right now, would I be talking about Sergeant Peanut Butter or Boyle?” 

Because that was it. If there was anything to get her mad enough to get any sort of reaction out of her, it had to be that. _It had to be._ He just made a joke––a shitty horse pun, at that––about their friend who had literally taken a bullet, potentially saving their other friend––Amy’s _best_ friend––’s life. He’d get an eyeroll, or she’d elbow him in the ribs, or she scoff or maybe even a quiet, disbelieving laugh. 

But she didn’t. She didn’t do any of that. She didn’t even narrow her eyes at him. 

She just turned her head and looked at the stage. 

And that was going to be the end of this. They were going to talk. He was going to confront her about all of this because he couldn’t fucking take it anymore. How could what he thought was turning into a pretty cool friendship morph into this uncomfortable acquaintanceship? And she wouldn’t even talk to him long enough to say that they weren’t friends anymore. 

He was quiet for the rest of the ceremony. He was quiet on the trip back to the precinct, glaring out the window of Rosa’s backseat while she and Amy talked about the ceremony. He was quiet as he sat at his desk trying to figure out how to confront her, where to do it, what to say. He’d spent enough time thinking about this, he should’ve had all those answers. But he didn’t. 

Amy tapped on her desk in front of him. He didn’t look up at her, but he noticed that she did it. A dull tapping sound, made with her fingers, maybe the eraser on a pencil. She preferred to use pens, so it was likely her fingers––

He shook his head to himself. No wonder he didn’t have answers to all these questions. He couldn’t stay focused long enough to come to a sensible conclusion, caught off guard by inconsequential details that threw his train of thought onto a completely different track. 

He was distracted once again when Amy coughed––one time, very loudly. She tapped her fingers on her desk again. He looked up at her. What was her deal? 

She made eye contact with him for a moment. Then she stood up, not looking back at him as she walked toward the evidence room. 

His eyebrows drew together. What the hell kind of weird shit was that? She barely speaks to him for two weeks, then she just makes weird eye contact and traipses off to a room by herself? 

She wanted him to follow her, right? He looked around for a moment, making sure that nobody was paying attention to him before he went in her direction. He didn’t really care if she wanted him to follow her. They were going to talk about this, and what better time or place to do than here and now? This had gone on long enough. 

He walked into the evidence room a little quicker than he meant to, and she jumped when he burst into the door. 

“Oh my god,” her eyebrows drew together, “what’s your deal?” 

Jake shook his head at her, blinking wildly. He took a step back. “What’s _my_ deal?” 

She tilted her head to the side, brow still furrowed. “Yeah? You just came flying in here.” 

He opened his mouth to speak, then hesitated. He flicked his hands in front of him dismissively. He had a lot that he’d planned on saying, but what he found himself saying instead was much less effective. “Did you need something?” 

She stared at him for a moment, probably trying to read into his expression. Then she shrugged her shoulders. “Are you busy tonight?” 

“Am I––” He raised his eyebrows at her. “I’m sorry, what?” 

She couldn’t be serious. Was she… God, she was serious. She was looking at him like _he_ was the crazy one. Him! Like he hadn’t tried to talk to her like normal in the first place. Like he hadn’t tried on more than one occasion to set something up. 

He wasn’t mad at her. Truly, he wasn’t. It’s not like he really had anything to be mad about. But then she just strolled in here and asked if he was busy tonight and he was looking at her stupid, pretty lips and he wasn’t busy tonight but he came here to talk to her about––

“Look…” She trailed off, looking down at the floor and then rocking forward a bit when she looked back up at him. She took a step closer to him, one small step toward bridging the wide gap between them. “Honestly, your dress blues are kind of doing it for me.”

His tense shoulders relaxed just slightly. He looked down at his clothes, then back up at her, eyebrows raised. “What?” 

She mirrored his expression, eyes tracing appreciatively across his frame. “You have your cuffs on you?” 

He blinked slowly at her, his mouth suddenly feeling too dry. He didn’t look away from her as his hands rushed down to his hip, quickly tugging his cuffs out of their home. He extended his arm forward, dangling the cuffs off of one finger. 

His mind was suddenly in overdrive. That’s not what he came to the evidence locker for, definitely not what he thought was going to happen in here. They really should talk, but… She bit her bottom lip, and he was definitely going to do whatever she asked of him, especially if there were handcuffs involved. 

She laughed softly. “Good. Bring them with you. Eight o’clock.”

She brushed past him when she walked back to the door. He spun around to follow her with his eyes. 

“Oh, and Jake?” He raised his eyebrows to acknowledge that he’d heard her. “Keep your uniform on.” 

Then she was back out the door, thankfully not sticking around long enough to hear the low sound he made at the back of his throat. He was going to need a minute to compose himself before he could walk back into the bullpen, everyone’s eyes sure to fall on him as soon as he left. Maybe he should look through a case file to get his mind off of _that_.

What was that? So hot, god, she was so hot… He didn’t even care about all this weirdness the past two weeks, it didn’t even matter. What was two weeks, anyway? This didn’t go according to his plans at all, but when did anything ever go according to plan for him? This actually went _better_. Things would return to normal, this was like a reset. Exactly what they needed. 

By the time he was on his way to her house, his mind was a little clearer. They couldn’t just have sex without talking about this. Or… They _could_ , but they definitely shouldn’t. This might not bring things back to normal. And if they had sex today and then tomorrow was exactly like the past two weeks had been… That just wasn’t what he wanted. 

He enjoyed her friendship. He wanted it. This, in a way, was a big part of their friendship. But it was a more intimate part, far more intimate than any of his other friendships. And to have a false hope that their friendship was in tact just because they were horny, only to find out that they still weren’t really friends? At the risk of sounding cheesy, sharing something that personal with her, thinking he knew where they stood with one another, only to find out that he was completely wrong? Like every other disappointment in his life, he’d get through it. But it would suck. And it would make things a lot more difficult for him as her partner. 

They needed to talk. 

He walked into her apartment without knocking, same as he used to, with that in mind. 

She was leaning against her kitchen counter. Waiting for him. She looked almost the same as she had when he saw her a couple hours earlier. Her navy uniform was still tucked and pristine, all but the top two buttons looking exactly as perfect as she’d made sure it looked before the ceremony. Her hair, which had been pinned in a tight bun, hung around her shoulders. She opened her mouth to talk, but before she could say anything, he’d already begun. 

“We need to talk, Ames. Things have been––like, things have been weird between us, haven’t they?” He turned on his heel, walking toward the living room as he kind of turned the conversation more toward himself, not giving her a chance to respond. “I mean, I…” He turned back toward her. “Things have definitely been weird. Like since that night at my place, and everything was different but it was like, normal? Right? Things didn’t seem weird then but the next time I saw you everything was? So weird. So? Is it still going to be weird? Because, I don’t know, I thought we’d decided,” he stopped his pacing, looking straight at her again. Her eyebrows were pulled together, clearly trying to process all of the rushed words he was saying. “I thought that we had decided that this was _friends_ with benefits, now. And it hasn’t really felt like friendship, so I just want to know where I stand with you.” He shrugged, looking down at the floor and shifting his weight as his statement went from _I’m confused_ territory straight into _these are my feelings._ “Because I really like being your friend. So if that’s not what you want, that’s fine. But I just have to know. Before…” He gestured between them, looking up at her guiltily and shrugging again. He took a deep breath. 

She blinked at him a few times. “Are you done?” 

He looked back down at the floor. His heart was beating really hard, and he took another deep breath before he gave her a slight nod. 

She nodded back. “Okay. Yeah. You’re right. And I’m sorry.” She stood up straight, took a step toward him. She sighed, letting it trail off into a little groan as she looked up at the ceiling. “You’re absolutely right. Things have been weird. And you didn’t do anything wrong, it wasn’t… It had nothing to do with that night at your apartment.” 

“It didn’t?” 

A quick frown flashed across her face. “No, Jake.” She started twisting her fingers. “It’s…” Another groan. “So, my mom actually called me right after I left your apartment that night.”

“And everything’s always a fight with her.” Jake looked at her, kept his eyes on her face even as she faltered and looked away. 

She nodded. “Yeah. So. You didn’t do anything, but I guess she kind of got in my head. About where I’m at with my life and what I’m doing and what my brothers are doing and… You know, just hard to measure up to seven brothers. Especially when one of them can do no wrong.” 

“And so you didn’t want to do this whole friends with benefits thing anymore.” 

“It’s not that I didn’t want to.” She leaned back against the counter, a feigned attempt at looking nonchalant. “I just let her make me feel like what I’m doing is wrong. Not that she even knows about it, I mean, obviously… But just. Nothing quite makes you feel inferior like Camila Santiago asking a variety of intrusive questions and then reprimanding you for every half-answer that you give her, then gloating about what the rest of your family is doing.”

She was still looking away from him. “Hey.” She didn’t look up. He walked over to where she was standing. His shoulder brushed against hers where he leaned on the counter next to her. “You’re the best Santiago.” 

Amy scoffed. “You don’t even know the other ones.” 

“I don’t have to.” 

She laughed softly. “You’re just saying that. Because of,” she gestured between them, “this.” 

“Hey, Amy.” She sighed, but she finally looked up at him. “I’m not just saying that. And it has nothing to do with us. This.” He waved his hand dismissively. “It’s… Like, I’ve only known you for a few months, but you’ve done some really cool shit. And solved some really cool cases. _Most of which_ , involved my assistance, ya’know, as the best partner, and all.” She rolled her eyes at him, but laughed under her breath. “But every now and then you work through it before I even have a chance to catch up. And it doesn’t matter what your family has done, they can’t take that stuff away from you. You’re your own person.”

She smiled a little at him, but he shook his head. “You’re, like, so smart, Ames. _So smart._ It’s ridiculous. Like, you know that show, Cash Cab? You’d be my phone a friend.” She laughed a little more fully. “I’m serious! You’re good at basically everything.” His voice got a little quieter. “Except dancing.” 

She gasped and smacked him on the shoulder.

“But everything else!” They both laughed. “So are we good?” 

She looked up at him, a soft smile on her lips. “Yeah, Jake. We’re good. Thank you.” 

He shoved her playfully with his shoulder. “That’s what friends are for, right?” 

She raised her eyebrows at him, leaning over to push back against him. “That’s not all friends are for.” She bit her lip, laughing into her smile. “You brought your cuffs with you, right?” 

He grinned at her. “Cuffs?” He looked down, putting on a show of acting surprised when he found them on his hip. “Oh, would you look at that. Did you need to use them?” 

She looked at him from underneath her eyelashes, batting them at him. “I mean… I was thinking maybe _you_ could use them.” She shifted so she was no longer next to him, instead standing a few feet in front of him, looking down at the floor, an innocent look in her eyes when she looked back up at him. “I’ve been really bad, detective…” She paused, pursing her lips and looking at him thoughtfully. “We haven’t talked much lately. Is this okay?” 

Jake shook his head at her, and for a moment she wasn’t sure of herself. Maybe she’d taken it too far, maybe he wasn’t into the little bit of roleplay she was falling into. Maybe he’d think it was weird. But then the mischievous smirk crept back onto his face, not quite hiding the hunger in his eyes, and he gave her a slight nod. “Detective _Peralta,_ ” he corrected.

“I’ve been really bad, _Detective Peralta_.” Her voice was soft and suggestive, broke in all the right places. 

He took a few steps forward, tucked the cuffs back onto his hip. “Don’t know how long this is gonna last if you keep sounding like that.” 

“What are you doing?” She looked at him curiously, but made no motion to stop him as he began unbuttoning her own uniform shirt. 

“I figured…” He trailed off, leaning in to press a kiss against her jaw, trailing a few further down. “That it would be too difficult to get you undressed once you already had the cuffs on. This okay?” 

She nodded, eyes set on his face as he continued quickly undoing buttons. She helped him to slide the top off of her shoulders. He kept her eye contact as he untucked the white tank top underneath roughly, taking time to litter a few kisses across her cleavage before he pulled that up over her head, too. By now her breathing was getting shallower, anticipation flowing through her. She stretched up to kiss him, but he backed away with a laugh. 

“You’ve been _so_ bad, and you think I’m just gonna let you off without a punishment?” He clicked his tongue at her. “Can’t believe you, Santiago.” 

“I’m so sorry, sir.” 

He hummed appreciatively. “Sir. Okay, cool, cool, cool. Liked that more than I thought I would.” 

When he caught her feeling proud of herself, the determination crept right back into his eyes. He reached his arms around her back, making quick work of the clasp on her bra. He tossed it to the floor, his hands finding her hips, thumbs slowly rubbing circles on their way up her sides. His thumbs slid playfully underneath her breasts, his fingers cupping on either side. She _just_ let her eyes slip shut when he dragged his thumbs up, teasing her nipples. He’d moved so slowly up to this point, so she never expected his next move. 

Her eyes were still closed, completely unsuspecting when he gripped her wrist and twisted. Her whole body spun in response, and he jerked her back, wrists crossed until she could feel his entire body against her. Her surprised gasp shifted into a quiet moan when she felt him already hard pressed against her. 

She felt the cool metal of the cuffs on her wrists as he slid them onto each arm. She could barely hear the metal scraping of each cuff closing over the sound of her heartbeat in her ears and _god_ , she was liking this even more than she thought she would when she suggested it. 

He slid his hand back up her body, careful to trail his fingers between her breasts instead of giving her the attention she wanted so badly from him. His fingers wrapped loosely around her neck, rubbing lazy circles there as he pushed her hair away from her ear with his nose. “Safe word is lawyer,” he whispered into her ear, “got it?” She nodded quickly. “And I want you to use it if things even maybe feel like they’re too much.”

She nodded again. “Yes, Detective Peralta. Are you gonna read me my rights?” He cinched the cuffs a little tighter, tugging her backward with the movement. She sucked in a sharp breath. 

He breathed against her neck, holding her close to him by his grip on her wrists. Her hand grabbed at his wrist lightly, and he chuckled against her skin. “You have the _right,”_ he emphasized the _t_ sound, “to remain silent. But I really hope you won’t.” She groaned quietly at that, and the admission paired with his laughter falling against her neck was enough to get her hips moving backwards, trying to feel him. 

“Ah, ah,” he tutted quietly, his lips finding their favorite spot on her neck and wrapping around the sensitive skin, his teeth pressing in just enough to warrant her little gasp, his tongue dragging along the mark. “Anything you say can and will be used against you––in the _best_ way.” She gasped again when he tugged her against him a little harder. “If you can’t afford a lawyer… I’m sure we can find another way to call it even.” 

“Fuck, you’re hot,” she whispered back. 

“God, that _language_ ,” he teased. “You really are bad, huh?” 

She hummed when he slid his hand, palm flat, back down her abdomen. He released her wrist, snaking his other arm around her waist so he could unbuckle her belt. “So bad,” she whispered. 

“Mhm,” he agreed. “Why don’t you tell me what you did?” 

He made the request, then immediately made it impossible for her to follow through. As soon as he said the words, he slipped his hand into the front of her pants, and his soft realization of, _“Fuck,_ you really like this, don’t you?” had his fingers teasing her enough that she all but forgot how to speak. 

“I asked you a question,” he reminded, but his fingers didn’t stop. 

She leaned her head back against his shoulder. “Sorry–– _mmmm,_ sorry, sir. I–– _ah_ , fuck, I… evaded the police.” 

His fingers slowed. “You _evaded_ the police?” She nodded against him, and he made a vague sound of understanding. “Hope you won’t try to escape this time.” 

“No, sir.” She turned her head enough that she could see his face from the corner of her eye. “I’ll cooperate, I swear.” 

He laughed softly, laugh deepening a bit when she whined at the complete loss of his fingers. He gripped her elbow, turning her slightly so that she’d watch him lick his fingers clean. He noted the tension between her eyebrows, but all she did was bite her lip. The hand on her elbow guided her into the bedroom and toward the bed, where he gently pushed her to sit down. 

He stood in front of her, his hands placed on his hips. “You say you’ll cooperate, but you didn’t _really_ tell me what you did in the first place, did you?” 

She looked down at the floor as if she were embarrassed. “I didn’t _mean_ to get into trouble.” 

He leaned in, tipping her head to the side with his face to get a better view of her neck. He hummed appreciatively into a kiss. “Sorry, much more fun to distract you. Please go on.” 

She swallowed, her head lolling to the side and giving him a wider expanse to explore. He thanked her with a series of nibbles, stopping to suck a hickey down near her collarbone, where it would be easy enough to hide. 

“Ames?” 

“Sorry.” She shook her head. “I was, uh… saying that I didn’t mean to get into trouble.” 

“But you _did_. So what did you do?” He barely stopped kissing her to speak, immediately resuming his playful nipping as soon as the question left his lips. 

“I–– _oh_... I, um… jaywalked.” 

His lips stilled on her neck. He pulled back slowly, an eyebrow arched as he looked at her. “I’m sorry… Did you just say you… _jaywalked?”_

She blinked. “Uh… yeah?”

He dipped his head down into her chest, laughing way harder than she thought was appropriate. He was laughing so hard that it was shaking her body where he touched her. “Let me just…” He shook his head, pausing to laugh some more. “Middle of sex stuff, you’re like, _dirty talking_. I ask you what you did to get arrested… and the worst crime you can think of… is _jaywalking?”_

She furrowed her eyebrows at him. “Well, Jake! I’m not gonna pretend to be a _criminal!”_ She rolled her eyes. “Is that something that turns you on?” He was laughing too hard to answer her. “Just… Do you want me to have said I murdered someone?” 

His laughter roared back up. He pushed away from her completely, standing in front of her and shaking his head as he laughed. “Those are your two settings? Jaywalking and murder? You go from barely illegal to killing someone?” 

She sighed. “You know what, this was stupid. We don’t have to––lawyer, or whatever.” 

“Hey, hey.” He shook his head at her, kneeling down in front of her. The laughter died on his lips, giving way to a look of pure concern. Her face was a shade of pink that was clearly inspired by more than just his lips on her neck. She avoided looking at him. “Hey, Ames, c’mon. We can stop if you want, but it’s not…” He shrugged. “I’m laughing because you’re cute. But you’re also sexy as hell. And you’re funny, and that was just so _you_. It was good. You’re good.” He traced his fingers along her side, and she hesitantly looked at him. 

He raised his eyebrows at her. “Lawyer?” 

She took a deep breath, her voice curt. “No.” She blinked at him. “Sir.” 

“You sure?” He rested his arms on her knees, propped his chin up on them to look up at her. “I only want to do this if you want to.” 

She split her legs apart quickly, giggled as Jake fell between them, scarcely catching himself on the edge of the mattress. “I’m sure, Jake.” 

“Detective Peralta, to you,” he reminded, his voice dark. He smiled at her, a quick flash before a more determined look took over. He stood up straight, then leaned back over her. She leaned back to accommodate the space he was taking up. He ghosted his lips against hers, and her eyes were wide as she returned his gaze. 

“You know, you were being so good for me, I was thinking about giving you a little reward.” He licked his lips, daring her to close the distance. She held her breath. He scoffed at her. “First you jaywalk, then you evade the police. Now you’re here with me, _claiming_ that you’re going to cooperate, but what was that? Attempted assault of an officer?” 

She swallowed thickly, her breath catching in her throat. “No, sir.” 

“Physical contact, if my memory serves correctly. You know what that is?” 

She tilted her head to the side. “Jake, don’t make a joke about––”

“I’m gonna make a joke about it, Ames. It’s right there.” 

“Worse than jaywalking––”

“It’s a _Class D_ felony.” 

She laughed softly, shaking her head at him. “There it is.” 

He pushed closer to her, and she leaned back further. She could tell that’s what he was looking for at the moment. All part of the game. “What do you think an appropriate punishment for a Class D felony is?” 

Her breath was shaky as it fell against his lips, but she honestly wasn’t sure where he was going. “Is this… another Class D joke? Because if you tell me you’re gonna put the D in Class D or something…” 

“Ew, what? No.” He laughed again. “Gross. I was genuinely asking what you thought an appropriate punishment was, Ames.” He shrugged his shoulders, looking at her almost nervously. “I don’t wanna push any boundaries.” 

She had a quick flash of emotion, but she just smiled gingerly at him. “Try whatever you want. I trust you. And that’s what the safe word is for.” She paused for a moment, looking him over as he took a step back. “Although honestly, I’m already feeling pretty punished. You’re still so… _clothed.”_

He raised his eyebrows at her. “That’s a great idea, actually.” 

He took two steps back, placed his hands back on his hips. “Yeah, I think this is the right move.” Her eyes followed his fingers as he began pushing his buttons out of their place, taking extra care not to look at her while he did it. He moved smoothly, looked up at her with a straight face after he slid it off of his shoulders. Her lips were parted slightly, and he laughed. 

“What’s wrong, Santiago? Like what you see?” 

She pressed her lips together, defiance clear in her eyes as she sat silently in front of him. 

He shook his head at her. “Another thing to add to your track record, here. Refusing to talk, huh?” He reached his arm back behind his head, tugged his undershirt off in one quick movement. “Bet I can get you to talk, though.” 

She took a deep breath as he unbuckled his belt, slowly pulled it through all his belt loops. He turned and walked over to her dresser, laughing quietly as he went. He set the belt on top of her dresser. “You ever stepped on a belt buckle in the dark? _That’s_ punishment.” 

“Jake,” Amy whimpered breathily. He turned back to look at her, a soft smile on his lips. “Come back.” He raised an eyebrow at her. “Please?”

“Only because you asked so nicely.” He wiggled his eyebrows, his smirk growing as he sauntered over to her. He stopped when he was a little more than an arm’s length away. They stared at each other, the sound of his zipper cutting through the silence. She licked her lips as his pants fell to the floor. She held his gaze for a moment, then her face fell when she glanced down at his waist.

“Are those gummy bears?” 

He wiggled his hips at her, smoothing his hands over the fabric on his thighs. “Would’ve worn something a little more Santiago approved, but I didn’t know that we’d be doing this today.” He turned around, looking over his shoulder at his ass. “What, you don’t like them?” 

“I mean…” She followed his eyes, not bothering to look away even when he laughed at her. “They’re definitely you.” 

He turned back to face her. “Yes, because I, like gummy bears, am very sweet. And cute.” He raised his eyebrows at her.

“Gummy bears don’t talk as much as you, though.” 

Jake scoffed. “I hope this isn’t how you would act if you were actually arrested.”

She mirrored his expression. “Why? You worried that I’d seduce whoever arrested me?” She laughed softly, and he was already shaking his head at her mischievous look. “Don’t worry, _detective._ I bet whoever it is won’t be as easy as you.” 

He laughed with her, but as his laughter died, his smile faded with it. He stepped forward slowly, tucking his fingers beneath her elbow and gently helping her to her feet. Her breath hitched as he leaned over her, his lips almost touching hers as he chuckled. 

He shifted, his voice low in her ear. “Do me a favor and remember what you just said when I’m making you come for the third time tonight.” 

Then just like that, he was behind her again. He unbuttoned her pants, yanking them and the underwear beneath them down as he finally kissed her. She kicked her pants off all the way and within seconds she was humming into a kiss as he touched her. He kept one hand on her hips, keeping her close to him, while his fingers traced slow, teasing circles between her legs. 

“This is the best punishment though, don’t you think?” He was back to whispering against her neck as she leaned against him. “Almost giving you what you want, but holding back just enough that it’s driving you crazy?” He made a low sound at the back of his throat. “Fuck, you’re wet.” 

She gasped as his finger focused on her clit, rubbing quick, tight circles just long enough to get her writhing against him. As soon as she moaned for him, he stopped. 

She panted softly, turning her head to nuzzle into his neck. “Please––”

His fingers found her again, slow and dedicated to exploring. This particular position gave Amy a slight advantage, and though she could barely think straight with him touching her like that, she managed to make quick work of that advantage. Her hands were still crossed behind her back, but he held her against his body. Her left hand grasped helplessly at the fabric that still hugged his hips, her right hand searching for something more substantial to hold onto. 

He hummed a surprised little _mmmm_ when she grabbed him, working with her limited mobility to grip and stroke him. 

“Here, let me…” She reluctantly let go of him, and she waited as patiently as she could when his hands left her completely. Then he was holding onto her again, his hand snaking between her legs. When she pressed against him, there was nothing between them. 

A few minutes later, Jake was twisting her around to get her situated comfortably on the bed. She leaned back against the pillows, looking at him questioningly. 

“You good?” He adjusted the pillows, hovering between where her legs were spread for him. “Your wrists okay?” 

“Yes, Jake, just _please_.” 

“God, you’re impatient.” He laughed softly, but when she stretched up to kiss him, he closed the distance, letting his hands roam her body freely. He held her face, traced down her collarbone and onto her chest, taking his time there. Then his fingertips were ghosting across her ribs, making her break the kiss to giggle when it tickled. He grinned, deepening the next kiss as his hands travelled lower. Her hips, his hold getting a little tighter. His thumbs rubbed across that spot he liked to kiss, and her hips stirred in response. His touches lightened again as he brushed past her hips, trailing along her outer thighs. She whimpered into his kiss, then she was settling back into the pillows as he began kissing down her body. 

He continued trailing his fingers up and down her thighs. She felt him grin against her skin when he made her shiver, his stupid smile even wider when it happened a second time. He chased the goosebumps away from her ribs, then his tongue was sliding down past her belly button and she was arching closer to him, annoyed that she couldn’t direct him with a hand in his hair like she normally would. He stopped to give some attention to that spot on her hip and whether she wanted him to move faster or not, she was definitely humming by the time he was ready to move again. 

She groaned softly when he pushed his body further down on the bed. He’d completely skipped a section of her body––arguably the most important section, given the context. He pressed light kisses just above the side of her knee, his fingers still intent on those light, distracting touches on the outside of her thighs. He looked up at her as he trailed his kisses up a little higher on her thigh. He was making a show out of it all, taking his time and teasing her and she knew it was going to pay off, but it didn’t quell the fire inside of her to know when he was _so_ close. 

He nipped his way across her thighs lazily, like he had nowhere to be, no other, more important things to attend to. Yeah, her fingers in his hair would’ve been pretty useful at the moment. 

“Jake,” she whined softly. 

He didn’t look up at her, choosing instead to lick a slow stripe up the inside of her thigh. His hands finally stilled, and he looked up at her. She could feel his breath on her when he spoke, the lightest sensations on the skin that had been most neglected by him. “Did you need something?” 

“You,” she answered quickly, her hips shifting without coming closer to him. “I need _you_.” 

He looked at her, an eyebrow raised, waiting. 

“Please?” 

He made a face, tilting his head a little, his fingers beginning to move up and down her thighs again. That wasn’t the right answer.

She groaned. “What? I don’t know what you want, I can’t think, you’re too––just–– _Peralta_ ––” He raised his eyebrows at her then, and that’s when it hit her. “Oh! Detecti––”

She cut off a moan when he wrapped his tongue around her, a reward for finally understanding what he wanted. And she was completely right. It was _definitely_ worth the wait. It was maybe even better _because of_ the wait, her entire body tingling from each touch. She barely even noticed when his fingers left her thigh, but she gasped when he slowly worked a finger inside of her. Her hips shuddered slightly, his responding hum sending a whole new shockwave through her. 

He added a second finger, and each time he pumped them inside of her, she made a soft, breathy sound. He traded his slower movements for something more substantial. He knew she wouldn’t last long with his tongue flicking against her, but he thought he’d have a few more minutes than he got. 

“Fuck, fuck, Jake––”

“Mhmm,” he hummed against her, keeping up his work. And that was all she needed. Her words all ran together, unintelligible words bleeding into the prettiest sounds he’d ever heard as her thighs shook around him. 

This was an entirely new experience for her. Typically her fingers would be tangled in his hair, gripping the sheets, the pillow, _something_. Instead, they were stuck behind her back. It almost seemed like everything was heightened, her inability to distract or guide him leaving him open to pursue the most sensitive places as enthusiastically as he wanted. 

He went back to kissing the inside of her thigh as she relaxed into the pillows. Her eyes remained shut, her breathing still much too fast as she came down from what was possibly the best orgasm of her life. 

She opened her eyes to find him grinning sheepishly at her. She wanted to roll her eyes at him. He was cute, looking all self-conscious like he wasn’t sure if he’d done a good job when she was positive that he knew he did. How could he possibly doubt himself when aftershocks from her orgasm were still hitting her, still making her tremble beneath his hands. 

“You doing good?” He asked. 

“Come here.” 

He bit his lip as he grinned at her, and this time there were no games. He sat up and shifted to pull her against him, his tongue finding hers with an intensity that had her craving way more than just a kiss. 

She hummed into the kiss, trying her best to move closer to him. He pulled away enough to laugh, her frustrated groan only making him laugh more. 

“Kissing you is way more fun when I can touch you, too.” 

“Hmm, what’s stopping you?” She rolled her eyes at his obvious teasing. “Ohhhh, I forgot. You’re cuffed.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Guess I’ll just have to find another way to help you have more fun.” 

He kissed her once more, his palm finding her jaw and tipping her face to meet his. By the time he pulled back and stood up, she was already rolling onto her stomach and adjusting for him. 

“So impatient,” he repeated, a laugh on his lips. 

Her feet were on the floor, and she twisted her hips and moved until she bumped into him. “C’mon, Jake. Please.” 

His hands rubbed softly at her hips. He took a moment to admire her. He ran his thumbs over the dimples in the small of her back, followed the the dip in her spine up to her shoulder blades with a light touch. She rutted against him, and he groaned softly as his fingers trailed back down her sides. 

He positioned himself, but before he could push forward, she was backing into him and his grip on her hips tightened, her soft exhale forcing him to collect himself a bit before he slowly pushed further. She muffled a moan into the pillows, and he pulled back a bit. “Is this okay?”

“Yes, _yes_. Keep going, keep…” She trailed off as he followed her directions, using the grip on her hips to pull himself to her steadily once, twice, three times. After giving her a moment to adjust to the pressure, he began working into a rhythm that seemed good for both of them. 

She buried her face in the pillows, quieting all of the sounds she was making (and he couldn’t be totally sure, but it sounded like there were _a lot of them_ ). He’d never had bad sex with her, didn’t think that was even a possibility, but as far as things went, this wasn’t his favorite position. She didn’t have a bad angle, and of course he was enjoying his view, but he couldn’t see her face. He loved watching her face, every reaction to the things he was doing to her, the tension in her eyebrows, the way her lips parted when she breathed his name. He couldn’t hear her say his name, or anything else for that matter, with her face pressed into the pillows but she seemed set on keeping it there which was decidedly _not_ his favorite place for her face to be. Not only did her face being there mean he couldn’t see her face, it also meant that he couldn’t really hear her voice. 

As much as he had loved the idea of the cuffs, and as much fun as he had with using cuffs on her up to this point, he kind of wished her wrists weren’t bound together. Being with her was usually overwhelming, all of his senses stimulated in some way. Of course he was still feeling her, but he was used to her hands roaming his body, running through his hair, nails pressing into him every now and then. All of the things he loved about sex with her weren’t gone, but they were different. He wasn’t seeing her the way he usually did, wasn’t hearing her the way he usually did, wasn’t feeling her or kissing her or tasting her like he liked to.

It was good. But something was missing. And he liked exploring a new thing with her, hoped that they tried other things together in the future, but he also wished that their first time together after much longer than usual wasn’t so _different_.

He was violently torn from his thoughts when Amy’s voice burst clearly into the quiet. 

“Fuck, lawyer, _lawyer!”_

Jake pulled out immediately, his hands staying steady on her hips, stepping to the side to look at her. She was already moving to stand up, and he helped her as best as he could. “What’s wrong? Are you okay? Did I––”

“Uncuff me.”

“Yeah, uh… Yeah.” His chest was rising and falling unevenly as he reached for the key. He was glad he set it on the bedside table so he didn’t need to search for it. He was feeling anxious. Did he do something wrong? Did he hurt her? His fingers shook as he unlocked each cuff. He set them on the table, placing his hand lightly on her hip. “Ames, are you okay?” 

He didn’t have time to process what was happening before she spun around, her fingers wrapping around him. He gasped, caught completely off guard. Then she was kissing him and he was humming against her lips as she played with him, her other hand tracing from his hips up to his chest and _this_ is what he had been craving. Her hands, her touch, her lips––which were leaving his and decidedly moving down his body and he couldn’t shake the wave of desire that overcame him as she looked up at him, her tongue pulling her bottom lip between her teeth for the briefest moment before she was smirking at him. 

She pressed her palms against his thighs, pushing him back until he hit the bed. He sat down, his breathing shallow as they stared at each other. He leaned down to kiss her again, his hands framing her face, thumbs tracing her jaw. She laughed when she pulled out of the kiss, pushing his shoulder lightly to get him sitting up straight again. 

He watched her closely as she teased him, her hand working him right next to her face. He reached over to touch her face again, his thumb smoothing over her bottom lip. His hand was still on her face, her eyes trained on his, as she took him into her mouth. 

He couldn’t have handled it for long. Her tongue on him was too much, and paired with the way she was twisting her wrist with each movement, he was getting worked up way too quickly. He was some mixture of grateful and desperate when she pulled him out of her mouth, intent on pressing wet kisses all across his length. She swirled her tongue around his tip before she stood up, pushing his shoulders back so that he fell back onto the bed. 

“I’m sorry,” she was already moving to straddle him, and her enthusiasm was possibly the hottest thing about this entire experience. “I really need to fuck you, I can’t wait anymore.” And then she was positioning him and he was sliding into her before he even had a chance to prop a pillow underneath his head. 

This was her favorite way to have him. 

She began grinding her hips against him, the slow, languid torture getting his hips flexing up into her with each movement. 

“So good, fuck, you’re so good,” he whispered. He squeezed her hip, a silent plea for her to move faster, but she wasn’t going to give in so easily. His other hand scrambled for purchase, searched desperately for something to ground him as she teased him, sliding him all the way out, pumping him in her hand one time, two times, then sinking back onto him. 

He struggled to keep his eyes open, tension clear in his eyebrows even when his lips parted to release another whimper. “Love watching you fuck me, feels so good, _shit.”_

She laughed softly. “God, you talk so much.” 

His eyes flickered back to her face, an eyebrow raised. “Want me to stop?” 

She twisted her hips, his eyes slipping shut in response. “Don’t act like you could.” 

“Don’t act like you don’t like it.”

“I never said I didn’t like it, Jake.” 

He squeezed her hip again. “Say that again.” 

“What? I didn’t like it? Jake?” He closed his eyes, bracing himself against her. He was distracted momentarily by the sounds she was making, which is why he didn’t expect it _at all_ when, in the deepest voice he had ever heard from her, she said, _“Oh, Jake.”_

He laughed, not giving her time to laugh with him before he was pulling her down for a kiss. He brushed his thumb against her lips. His eyes closed as she doubled down her efforts, grinding against him even faster. 

“I think…” He took a deep breath, his groan muffled against her neck. “I think you’re trying to be not sexy, but I don’t think anything you do right now could make me like this less.” 

She sat back up, her eyebrows raised as she leaned against his chest to give herself some leverage. “You sure about that? If that’s a challenge, I definitely think I could win.” 

“It’s not. It’s not, just–– _fuck_ , keep doing that.” His narrowed eyes focused on her face. “Please keep doing that. Ames, please. You feel…” He was speaking almost incoherently, losing himself as she rocked against him. He pulled one of her hands from its place on his chest, pulling it to his lips in search of some way to convey his appreciation. _Affection_ , whatever it was, he needed more. He kissed along her wrist, suppressing another sound against her skin. 

“Good?” She finished for him. 

“Incredible, you’re incredible.” He propped himself up on an elbow so he could watch her, one of his hands moving between her legs. He was getting close, wanted to watch as she unravelled, too. 

He leaned back, his hand still working tirelessly. She faltered, a combination of her tired thighs and distraction from his touch. He bent his legs, shifting the angle and earning himself an enthusiastic moan from her. 

He hummed appreciatively. “Yeah?” 

She nodded, her eyebrows pulling together as he gripped her hip, snapped his hips up to repeat the motion. He groaned, long and drawn out. “God, you look so pretty.” 

She closed her eyes, losing herself in him. “Don’t stop doing that––”

“Telling you you’re pretty? Gladly, you’re––”

“Jake, shut up and just––” She pressed her palms back against his chest, meeting him halfway with every thrust, and just like that, everything faded but her.

He had no more jokes, nothing to say but her name, twice in succession. “Amy, Ames.” 

He had a vague awareness that she was orgasming with him. His other hand moved to grab her hip, his hold on her tightening as his movements turned erratic. He turned his face into the pillows, breathed what he was pretty sure was some variation of her name again, groaned as she continued moving on top of him, her nails digging into his chest just enough to sting. 

Then she was leaning against him, kissing along his neck, still trembling around him. She pressed a kiss against his jaw. He hummed in response, his arm winding around her waist as she collapsed against him. Her fingers moved up to his collarbone, tracing there lightly, and he was briefly reminded of that night on his couch a few weeks earlier. He tried to shake the thought as they steadied their breathing. 

Amy shivered, the thin layer of sweat cooling in the air conditioning. He pulled the blanket up around her, began playing with her hair. 

“Mmmm, this is how you always get me.” 

He looked down at her. “How I get you?” 

She nodded. “You play with my hair, you pull the blankets around us, and then I fall asleep. And I wake up in the morning in your bed, or your arm is around me in my bed. And I’m not even gonna stop you.” 

He didn’t say anything for a moment. He kept playing with her hair, the hand on her back drawing lazy shapes between her shoulder blades. “I’m not staying tonight.” 

She seemed to shift, but not enough that he could identify if it meant anything. Her voice sounded normal when she spoke. “Oh, you have somewhere to be in the morning?” 

He shook his head. “No. Just… Rules, I guess.” 

She nodded. Her fingers smoothed against his collarbone again. “You don’t think this breaks rules?” 

“I think I still owe you another orgasm. But I need a minute before I can make that happen. And isn’t this more comfortable than if we awkwardly sit a few feet apart until we’re ready?” 

She laughed. “Definitely more comfortable.” Her hand trailed up to his jaw. She traced the angle with her fingers, and he swallowed thickly. “I think it’s okay if we amend our rules.”

He hummed. “I think we should talk about this when we’re in a less compromising position.” She didn’t respond, so he felt compelled to continue. “You know, emotions are probably running higher now than normal.” 

She pulled back so that he could see her expression, her eyebrows pulled together. “What, because women are too emotional after sex? This is about rules, not feelings, Jake. You don’t have to worry about me––” 

He looked at her hair as he twisted it between his fingers. “It’s not…” He shook his head. “It’s not about you. I just think we’ll both have clearer heads if we talk about it in a different setting.” 

She took a moment to respond. “Yeah. You’re probably right.” She shifted off of him, but kept her arm draped over his chest. “I think I’m gonna go get some water. You want some?” 

He made a sound of disgust. “Do I want water? Absolutely not.” 

She laughed. “I figured I’d try. You want an orange soda?” 

He leaned up on his elbow, looking at her as she stood up. “You have orange soda?” 

She shrugged. “I bought it for when you’re over. It’s not, like, a big deal or anything.” She avoided his eyes as she pulled a t-shirt out of her dresser and slipped it on. He was grinning at her when she looked back at him. “Stop looking at me like that. Do you want orange soda or not?” 

“Yeah. Please.”

She leaned against the doorframe, crossing her arms at him. “I’m trusting you, but if you spill it on my bedspread, you’re never allowed to drink anything in here again.” 

He laughed. “I won’t spill it. Promise.” He held out his pinky for her to link hers with. She stared at him from across the room. He’d only made a pinky promise with her once, and it was at work. It wasn’t like it was a thing they did or something. He expected her to just roll her eyes and walk out of the room. 

She did roll her eyes. But instead of walking out of the room, she held her pinky out from where she was standing. She curved her pinky and twisted it slightly, making the motions of a pinky swear without actually coming across the room to him. He laughed quietly, mimicking her motions. 

“I’ll be right back.” 

“Hey, Ames?” 

She turned to face him again. “What’s up?” 

“What were you gonna say? When you said you definitely had something that could make me like that less?” 

She laughed. “I was just gonna say that Die Hard was a bad movie.”

He laughed with her. “You’re right. That probably would have done it.” 

She shook her head at him as she walked out of the room to go get their drinks. 

He was really glad they talked about it. He was really glad they figured this out. He was really glad to have his friend back. He was really serious about that third orgasm, and he really reminded her of her teasing comment when he got her there. He really didn’t mind when she tugged on his hair a little too hard in response, and he enjoyed the kiss before he left way more than he really should have. 

He smiled all the way home, because for the first time in much longer than he liked, things felt normal. He had his friend back, he had his partner back, and things at work would be the way they always were. 

It wasn’t until he was laying in his own bed, showered and exhausted, that he thought a little more about their rules. 

He wasn’t sure what changing their rules entailed. Sure, they’d been sleeping over more than they used to, but if that was expressly okay… If they made the rules they were breaking into different rules, what rule did they break next? Then what happened after that? Did anything happen next? Did he want something else to happen next? 

He didn’t like her like that. He liked her a lot. In a normal, platonic kind of way. Could it be called platonic when they were having sex? A quick search on his phone proved that no, platonic specifically meant non-sexual, and their relationship surpassed that boundary before they even knew each other’s names. He liked her in the _you’re my super hot friend, and I really like having sex with you, but even more than that I just like being around you because you’re fun and smart and cool––but not like that_ kind of way. 

He liked spending time with her, just the two of them joking around while they worked a case, or competing to be the best detective, or making fun of each other because _she made it so easy_. He also liked spending time with her in other ways. He liked kissing her, thought about it way more than he maybe should. He liked watching Amy Santiago, all proper and serious at work, coming undone for him, saying words people never would’ve expected to hear from her mouth because of _him_. 

He liked holding her when they were done. He knew there was a lot more to sex than just the physical act, had a vague understanding of the hormones and endorphins that released after an orgasm, and that was the perfect excuse as to why it felt so nice holding her in his arms when they finished. There were all these weird brain chemicals buzzing around up there that weren’t normally there, so of course he wanted her in different ways than he normally did. He wanted the soft kisses, wanted to touch her just to hear those soft, sleepy murmurs. He wanted her whispering against his chest about how she was glad they were friends, or ghosting her lips across his collarbone and raising goosebumps there as his breathing slowed. Her falling asleep against his chest had almost become as normal as them having sex at all. 

Then there was the more recent addition. That night at his apartment. 

And while he believed her when she said that the reason she’d stopped talking to him had nothing to do with it, that didn’t stop his brain from associating it with the hiatus. And he liked her friendship. He liked her friendship way more than he liked the sex. And he _really_ liked the sex. 

So he didn’t want to do anything that threatened their friendship. Maybe that meant no weird, emotional hangouts where instead of having sex, they watched Disney movies and shared takeout straight out of the boxes. Maybe it meant no hugs that lasted longer than he’d hug Rosa, especially no holding each other while they almost cried.

Although he can’t imagine that he’d do anything differently than her if the tables had been turned. Even as he’s talking himself through all of this, he carries with him the knowledge that if Amy called him in that moment crying, he’d show up at her door to do anything he could to help. That’s what friends were for. 

That’s not all friends were for. But that’s all they were. Right? 

Friends. Perhaps if they had met under different circumstances, things between them would be different. He could see himself liking her. _Liking her_ , liking her. Had they started at the nine-nine together before having met, he could have really fallen for her. He could see them having a healthy rivalry, one of those will they, won’t they relationships you always see on TV.

Was that something he wanted with her? 

It didn’t matter. That’s not what they had. It was for the best. What they had was a friendship that was sometimes confusing, but always good. He was glad to have her as a friend. What they had was a set of rules that kept them in line, even if sometimes when he was alone, his mind wandered to places he knew it shouldn’t go. 

What would changing those rules mean for them? What would it mean for his wandering mind if when he pulled her against his chest, she simply relaxed into him for the night instead of pretending that he was tricking her into sleeping over? He knew what he wanted, which, one hundred percent, wandering mind aside, was the arrangement that they currently had. Friendship, partnership… sexship? (Decidedly a bad term, sounds like it belongs in an alien themed porno, _don’t_ say that in front of Amy). 

And she had made clear from the very beginning that all this was to her was sex. The arrangement was _good_. It was _working_. He’d much rather break the rules that they had than change the rules to fit what they were doing now. He didn’t want to change their arrangement to fit a developing relationship because their relationship wasn’t developing. They were just breaking the rules. And he broke rules all the time! Absolutely nothing wrong with that. 

There were reasons for breaking rules. There were excuses to be made. They were going to the same place in the morning, why take the extra forty-five minutes of public transportation to get home when you could just stay here? It made more sense to just pick something up on the way home for them to eat together instead of eating separately when he was going to end up at her apartment that night, anyway. 

But then he remembered the orange soda in her fridge. Orange soda that she bought specifically for him. 

And it made sense. It made all the sense in the world that she would get something that he liked, considering he was there pretty often. He had water at his house for her, albeit a case of water bottles that his mom had dropped off for him two years earlier that he hadn’t so much as opened before Amy started coming over. 

She went out of her way for him. And she didn’t have the orange soda the last time he was at her apartment, which meant that in the time that she hadn’t been talking about him, she’d still been thinking about him. She knew that she was going to talk to him again, planned on him coming back to her apartment. Or she secretly liked orange soda and just bought it for herself. Plausible. Orange soda is good, and she probably would like it if she tried it. 

The orange soda didn’t have to mean anything. 

But did it?

There was so much that they hadn’t talked about. Talking wasn’t really their strong suit. They were really great at some of the things they did together, but it seemed like they always missed some pretty big things when it came to talking. For example, logistically… What _were they?_ Friends, he knew, but if he met someone… Could he pursue it? Would it be harmful to their partnership at work if he met someone and started dating? They’d never even discussed it. Was she dating? He didn’t think she was dating. He hadn’t been. 

But not because he _wasn’t_. Just because he… hadn’t. He hadn’t met anybody. And he spent a lot of his time with her, barring these past two weeks. 

All of this left him more confused than he had been when the first thought popped into his head. He knew one thing for sure: they shouldn’t change the rules. He could sway on the eating together thing. They should definitely do that, it made way more sense, plus they wouldn’t have to make the distinction between _it’s okay at work, but not at home._ But they shouldn’t change the rule about sleeping over. If they broke the rule, they broke the rule, but it should definitely continue being the rule. They shouldn’t change the rule about soft kisses, though he was going to give them to her anyway. They wouldn’t change the rule about falling in love. 

It was just sex. 

That’s all it was. 

And when his dreams that night revolved around orange soda, soft kisses, and none other than Amy Santiago… 

Well, it was easy to make excuses. He had just been thinking about all of those things that night, after all…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> y'all this chapter features some of my favorite smut to write: the joking, laughing, teasing each other throughout the whole experience kind. I just love it and it feels a lot to me like how things would be between them ¨̮ ¨̮ ¨̮ 
> 
> Also ummmm Jake saying "Amy, Ames" in that context (insert the eyeballs emoji here, pls and thank you)
> 
> anyways I have to get up for work in four hours. 
> 
> Thanks so much for all the support on this fic!! I love and appreciate all of you. Comments and kudos are appreciated, as hallllllways.


	7. do you feel us falling?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jake's birthday bc wbk I love doing birthdays in fics ¨̮ ¨̮ ¨̮

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Go Radio's Goodnight Moon. 
> 
> _Just feel her lips,_   
>  _Lock onto every breath I take,_   
>  _And breathe it in_
> 
> _Do you feel us falling?_   
>  _Cause I can feel us falling._
> 
> _So goodnight moon,_   
>  _And goodnight you,_   
>  _When you're all that I think about,_   
>  _All that I dream about_   
>  _How'd I ever breathe without?_

He seemed frustrated from the moment he walked off of the elevator. It wasn’t necessarily apparent by the slump in his shoulders, which was typically present when he dragged himself into the precinct in the morning. He sauntered in the same that he usually did, grumpy eyes set on his desk. He sat down there, his face disappearing into his hands, and while she’d seen him do this on many occasions, something seemed off about him. 

She watched quietly from her desk, inspecting all of his movements. He looked up and caught her staring, and instead of the typical grin or eyebrow waggle she’d normally receive, he stared blankly for a moment, then turned away from her completely. 

Had she done something wrong? 

It didn’t matter, she supposed. She twisted back toward her computer, trying to ignore him across from her. 

But what had she done? Things were fine yesterday when they’d spoken. He asked if she could make it over to his apartment after work and she politely informed him that she had plans with Kylie. He smiled understandingly and brushed it off as if it wasn’t a big deal. It _wasn’t_ a big deal. They had both cancelled or been unavailable in the past. It happens sometimes. It’s not like she had been rude about it.

Things had been normal between them lately. They had those weird few weeks where she hadn’t been talking to him, but they talked about it. They resolved it. Everything was fine now, or at least it had seemed mostly fine. It felt mostly fine. There was the mishap about changing the rules… 

Even reflecting on it now, she didn’t quite understand. She was the one who suggested that they amend their rules. The thing was… they were breaking the rules all the time. So clearly the set of rules that they’d chosen wasn’t working. They could adjust the rules into something that made more sense for them. Their relationship was a little different now than it was when they’d made the rules. They didn’t work together then, for starters. He knew very well that work was the most important thing in her life, but what they were doing was important, too. 

It didn’t make sense anymore to not be friends with him. They were colleagues, they were partners. They spent more time with each other than with anyone else. Of _course_ they were going to be friends. So it made sense that they’d get rid of the rule about eating together. It made way more sense to have some meals together than it made to not, considering how often they were together.

And Jake seemed perfectly fine with adjusting that rule. It was the first one she’d brought up when she breached the subject again, sitting next to him in the passenger seat during a stakeout. The safest rule. The least scary rule to talk about. For him, she means. _She_ wasn’t afraid to bring up rules about their relationship, of course. What reason did she have to be afraid? 

She brought it up and he shrugged it off pretty quickly. _Yeah._ He looked at her and nodded, then turned his attention back to the binoculars he was holding. _I mean, we always eat together at work anyway. For the sake of my sanity, it makes more sense to just say we can eat together at home, too._

 _What about restaurants?_

He looked back at her, narrowing his eyes just enough to make her feel self-conscious about the question. _Like a date?_

He spared her the extra embarrassment, turning his head again when she felt her face heat up. _No, not–– I didn’t mean… Like, Shaw’s? Just, if we happen to––_

 _It doesn’t matter to me, Ames. We can eat in the vicinity of each other in any location, and that’s fine by me. Friends get dinner together._

She nodded quickly, ready to drop that particular subject. And that was the easy question. They’d gone through a few other rules in a similar manner, but it was the final rule, the one she didn’t particularly feel comfortable bringing up, that he shied away from. 

_So… Sleeping over._

He was quiet for a moment, keeping his eyes set through the binoculars. He cleared his throat. _Sleeping over?_

_I think we might as well get rid of the rule that we can’t stay at each other’s apartments. Since we do it all the time, ya’know._

He was quiet for a long time. She was about to uncomfortably tack on another awkward statement when he finally spoke. 

_I’m not sure if that’s a good idea._

_Oh? You think we shouldn’t stay at each other’s places?_

He lowered the binoculars, but he remained staring out the window instead of turning to look at her. _I think we should definitely keep the rule._

 _Oh._ And she wasn’t sure why. If she had done something wrong, perhaps? They’d _been_ staying over, had even done it the night before, and yet now he was saying they shouldn’t? It didn’t make sense to her. But she didn’t want to push it, wasn’t sure if she even wanted to know his answer as to why. 

_Yeah, if that’s what you think, that’s fine with me._

And she tried not to dwell on it too much. But then the next time he came over (three days later, because they _have_ self-control), he was pressing soft kisses, which she’d specifically avoided bringing up during the conversation about rules, across her shoulder blades after they’d finished. He rested his chin on her back, his arm winding around her waist as he breathed a soft, little sigh against her skin. 

_Are you leaving?_

He shifted so that she could turn to look at him. She looked at his face briefly, then leaned her head against his chest. He wrapped his arms around her, laughing softly. _Do you want me to?_

_I thought we didn’t change the rule?_

He stayed silent as he trailed his fingertips across her back, making their way up to tangle through her hair. She tipped her head up to look at him again. He leaned closer, their lips barely touching as he kissed her. He leaned his forehead on hers, smiling softly with his eyes closed. _Rules are meant to be broken, Ames._

What the hell did that even mean? 

“Ames? Can we–”

She made a face at him as he tore her out of her thoughts, and he turned quickly when the elevator sounded behind him. The elevator opened, but nobody got off. His eyes flickered over to her in confusion, but he shrugged and continued. 

“Can we maybe duck out of here to make it to the Benson crime scene before everyone else gets here today?” 

Her eyebrows pulled together. “And miss the briefing?” 

He sighed. “I knew that was going to be a problem. Look, it’s not that big of a deal, but it would be really cool if you would miss just this once. I’ll take all the heat if Holt says anything about it.” 

“You got here super early… And you want to leave before they get here? Are you… avoiding them?” She watched as his eyes flicked back down to the desk for a moment. 

“No.” 

“Okay… Then why are we leaving before everyone else gets here?” 

“Can we just get out of here and I–”

“Is everything okay?” 

He sighed deeply, squeezing his eyes shut. When he opened them again, he smiled tightly at her. “Nevermind.” 

“Jake, we can–”

“It’s fine. I said nevermind.”

“Jake–”

She cut off when the elevator dinged again. In less than two seconds, she watched as a series of emotions passed over Jake’s features. He practically winced. The corner of his lips drew down into a half frown, his eyebrows drawing together to match. Then, abruptly, he pulled out the fakest smile she had probably ever seen. 

Boyle came out of the elevator yelling, startling Amy with the pop of a small confetti cannon. 

“Happy birthday, Jake!” He shouted, practically jumping up and down as the confetti rained down on Jake. 

Jake seemed to somehow push the boundaries of his smile even further as he beamed up at Charles. 

He didn’t want to celebrate his birthday. He hadn’t mentioned that he had a birthday coming up, and he definitely didn’t seem truly excited that Boyle was making such a big deal out of it at the moment. Charles began wheeling Jake’s chair toward the break room, babbling about his _eleven part birthday surprise_ , and she caught the pleading glance that Jake tossed in her direction. 

“Charles!” She called after him, following behind him quickly. 

Charles spun toward Amy, spinning Jake’s chair so that he was facing her, too. He waited patiently, eyebrows raised, for Amy to speak. 

“I– Uh… I’m really sorry to ruin your plans, but Jake has to come with me.” 

Charles made a face. “He has to go with you _where?_ Do you have a birthday surprise for him?” His face lit up at the prospect of that. “Ooh! Are you going to take him out for the most _sensual_ food, cow’s–”

“Stop! _Stop!_ ” Amy was shaking her head rapidly, her expression greatly mirroring the one she could see on Jake’s face in front of her. “Whatever that was, the answer is no. No birthday plans. We, uh… Got a really important lead on the Benson case. Jake and I are going to have to head over there right now.” 

“Right now? Before the briefing?! On _Jake’s birthday?!”_ His words got more frantic as he continued. “Amy! You’re ruining his birthday!”

Jake hopped out of his chair, moving behind Amy as if he were a child being protected by his mother. “I know, _ugh_ , Santiago’s the _worst_ , isn’t she?”

“What _is_ this important lead, anyway?”

Amy hesitated. “What?” 

Charles made a face at her. “The lead on the Benson case?” He narrowed his eyes. “If there even _is_ a lead… You know, Amy… If you’re trying to one-up my birthday surprise, you won’t be able to. It’s _perfect for him._ ”

“Uh…” She glanced at Jake, who just looked expectantly at her, signaling that she was on her own with the excuse. “We can’t talk about it until tomorrow. Captain’s orders.”

“Yeah, sorry to ruin your plans, Charles,” Jake echoed Amy. “I guess we’ll have to take a rain check. Maybe next year.” 

Charles groaned. _”Ugh._ Fall in love while you’re there, so it’s worth it.” 

Jake turned back to him as they walked into the elevator, shaking his head and gesturing with his hands. “Charles. It’s a _murder_.” 

As soon as the doors shut, Jake was looking at Amy. “God, _thank you_.” 

“You didn’t tell me it was your birthday.” She shrugged. “I guess getting you out of whatever that was can be my gift to you.”

Jake scoffed. “And here I thought I was going to get a thoughtful gift from you.” He laughed. “It’s the _worst_. Charles always tries to make me feel better about my birthday, but it’s bad every year. Even when I was a kid.” 

Amy frowned at him, checking to make sure nobody from the squad was in the lobby as they exited the elevator. “What’s so bad about your birthday? A reason to celebrate _and_ get gifts? I figured that would be right up your alley.” 

He stuffed his hands into his hoodie pockets. It was a little too warm for him to be wearing it, and she was surprised to see him almost retreating into it. “Just sucks. Ya’know. Once my dad left, birthdays were harder. It became about how he was never there and then my mom couldn’t always be there because of work.” He kicked at a rock as he waited for her to unlock the car. “Plus it just always seems like I have bad luck on my birthday. I’m probably cursed.”

Amy laughed. “You’re not superstitious, are you?” 

He settled into his seat for a moment, looking out the window silently. “It’s just a bad day, Ames.” 

She frowned at the tone in his voice. He’d had bad days every so often since they’d met. She was no stranger to Jake Peralta being upset. She’d seen him mad, she’d seen him sad, and she’d seen him frustrated a great many times. She had never heard him sound like this. He sounded completely dejected. He seemed stuck in his thoughts, and even before she had spoken to him in the morning, it was showing in all of his movements in ways she couldn’t even identify, but that she could definitely see. 

She glanced over at him, but he was just keeping to himself, very uncharacteristically looking out the window in silence. He didn’t fidget with the radio dials or play with his phone, he didn’t start any sort of conversation. Her eyebrows drew together for two reasons. 

_One_ , quite obviously, was that she was worried about him. Jake never got like this. At least not around her, and she was around him _all the time._ She could only imagine the things that must be on his mind to keep him entirely quiet when he normally couldn’t tolerate two full minutes of silence. And he wasn’t even trying to ease the tension for her with a half-hearted smile, something else she always caught him doing for others. _Maybe_ he just felt comfortable enough around her after all these months that he just didn’t feel the need to do it, but maybe that was just an added layer to whatever he was going through that she still didn’t fully understand. 

Secondly, she realized that they did not actually have an important lead on the Benson case. They could go to the crime scene, but they wouldn’t find anything different there from the last time they went. Did she go to the crime scene because that’s what they’d talked about? Did she make a detour somewhere else to try and cheer him up? 

“I… Sorry, I just realized I don’t know where we’re going.” She glanced back over at him again, and he turned to look at her while she spoke. “Did you want to swing by the crime scene? With us not actually having an important lead, I wasn’t sure…” 

His lips pulled to the side as he thought about it. She was sure he was plotting something out for the case. He was always so quick on his feet with work, and he could follow a gut instinct on a whim and be completely correct. Sometimes she could see the gears turning in his head. She couldn’t be sure if she was just making things out to be something they weren’t or if he actually looked different at the moment, but it had her working to find other suggestions, regardless.

“Or, I mean, if you _wanted_ , we could just go do something to––I don’t know, celebrate? For your birthday?” 

He laughed quietly. “We really don’t have to.” 

She wasn’t sure why she was pressing the issue. He just seemed so _sad_. “No, c’mon, it could be fun! We could grab breakfast or––”

“Amy.” He shook his head at her. “That’s really nice, but my birthday sucks. It’s sucked for thirty-six years, and it’s going to suck for the thirty-seventh, too. Plus, this year I feel _old_.” He made an audible gagging sound. “So that’s a bonus feeling. It’s fine. I’m gonna distract myself with work, then I’m going to find a way out of getting drinks with the squad, and I’ll maybe go cry in the shower or something later. Nothing you or anybody else does will make it a good day.” He shrugged, finally tacking on that smile meant only to make her feel better. “And that’s fine. Tomorrow will be less bad.” 

She frowned briefly, but nodded at him. He finally began twisting the knob for the radio, complaining quietly that there was no Taylor Swift––that was just proof that his birthday sucked. 

She thought that perhaps he was right. Maybe nobody could make him feel like his birthday was a good day. Even so, she figured she’d try to at least help him as best as she could with his plan. She spent the whole day chasing around theories on the Benson case with him, going from the crime scene to other notable locations in the case to evidence lockers and back. They hadn’t made any huge strides in the case, but Jake at least seemed well-distracted for most of the day.

They’d pushed their work day a little later than usual with no real reason, though she hypothesized that Jake was trying to miss going to the bar by simply working straight through it. It was 7pm, and they’d just pulled into the parking lot at the precinct. Amy put the car in park and turned it off, but made no motion to pull the keys out of the ignition. She turned to look at him. 

“See? If it was a good day, we would’ve gotten the guy today.” Jake’s voice was muffled as he spoke into his arm. He was slumped over in the passenger seat, his head leaning on the dashboard. He turned so she could see his face, but he had his eyes closed. “Now it’s time to disappoint my friends and drown in my sadness at home.”

He opened his eyes abruptly, as if he’d forgotten that he was with her. That same smile from earlier, the one that practically yelled _I’m fine, don’t worry about me_ , returned to his lips. “Don’t worry. I’ll be the same old Jake Peralta tomorrow.” He paused, scoffed quietly. “Same old _er_ Jake Peralta.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to hang with everyone? Maybe it’s worth trying to surround yourself with people who care about you.” 

He grinned wide at her, raised his eyebrows suggestively. “Awh, Amy? Are you saying you care about me?”

She rolled her eyes, but made no effort to hide her smile. “I’m _saying_ that you’re never going to have a better birthday if you lock yourself in your apartment alone every year.” 

He closed his eyes again, but made a vague sound of understanding. “Maybe. But maybe I’ll just wait ‘til next year to find out for sure. Ooh––or maybe I just wait until I’m forty? That’s a nice, even year. Although fifty is halfway to one hundred…” 

“Jake,” Amy said with a quiet, humorless laugh. “You should think about it.” 

He took a long moment to reply. His eyes opened, but he didn’t look at her. Instead, he stared blankly at the steering wheel. “Look, Ames. The thing is: I’ve been through this thirty-six times. And yeah, _maybe_ there’s a chance that the day could be better if I went out, but there’s also a chance that it’ll be a terrible day and then I got my hopes up just for them to be crushed, and, ya’know, I’ve done that before, and––” He paused abruptly, taking a deep, shaky breath. “I just don’t really wanna talk about this.” 

She frowned, but she nodded at him. “Yeah, okay. I’m sorry.” 

“Don’t––” He shook his head. “You didn’t do anything wrong. Thank you.” He shrugged nonchalantly. “For caring.” 

She turned to look out the window, glancing at their friends’ cars still lining the parking lot. “Hey, you go ahead inside. I’ll get you out of going to the bar.” 

He quirked an eyebrow at her, but nodded. Then he got out of the car without another word. She watched as he dragged himself into the precinct, his shoulders slumping the entire way. She frowned to herself. She’d never seen him like this, and she couldn’t figure out how to help. Maybe he was right and he just needed a night to himself. 

Unless…

“Jake!” She shouted as she walked into the bullpen. Everyone turned to look at her. Jake was standing in the middle of the bullpen, everyone crowded around him. They had all been smiling until she walked in and caught their attention.

“Santiago?” 

“I was cleaning the powdered _sugar_ ,” she emphasized, “out of the _patrol car_ , and you left your phone connected to the bluetooth. Your landlord called. There’s a raccoon in your apartment and he said he needs you there immediately.” 

“Ugh, not _again!”_ Jake shook his head, looking to all of his friends. “I’m sorry, guys. I’m gonna have to miss the bar tonight. But don’t worry! I still have the hockey stick from the last time the raccoon broke in, so I’m covered, there!” 

He ran over to the elevator, repeatedly tapping the button in an effort to force the doors to open. 

“God, Jake. Your birthday really _does_ suck, huh?” Rosa shrugged, turning back to the paperwork she had been flipping through. 

Amy watched the frown creep across his face as the elevator doors shut. 

“We’re still going to the bar if you want to come, Santiago,” Rosa offered. 

“I’m gonna have like ten drinks to get over the heartbreak of Jake missing his own birthday party. _Again_ ,” Charles tacked on dejectedly. 

Amy frowned. “Actually, I think I’m just going to head home. It’s been a long day.” 

“That lead get you anywhere on the Benson case?” Charles asked. 

“All dead ends.”

“Jake’s birthday strikes again,” Charles mumbled back. She nodded and got into the elevator without another word. 

She sighed to herself, Jake’s car already absent from the parking lot by the time she made it outside. This _did_ suck. She kept picturing the disappointed look in his eyes, the way his expression fell when he explained to her that spending his birthday with people opened him up to being hurt. He _expected_ to be disappointed because that’s what had happened to him so many times. 

She stood by her statement. He would never have a good birthday if he just locked himself up all alone. She wondered to herself if there was anything she could do to make this birthday a good one, but she hadn’t come up with anything conclusive. Besides, if he wanted her company, he would’ve told her that. 

She tried her hardest to shake the image of his frown out of her head as she headed toward her apartment. As much as he drove her crazy sometimes, she almost couldn’t bear to see him without his signature, goofy smile in place. 

She hoped he was right. 

Tomorrow would be less bad. 

––

Maybe Amy was right. 

Maybe he _should_ make an effort to have a good time on his birthday. 

The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. This birthday actually _hadn’t_ been terrible. He spent the whole day with her, and he loved spending time with her. Not that he had been keeping a tally on the window with a dry-erase marker or anything (he was keeping the list on his phone like a _normal_ person… and only because Amy confiscated his dry erase marker when he wrote _boobies_ across the windshield the last time they were on a stakeout), but he’d managed to make her laugh with his teasing sixteen times over the nine hours that they were chasing dead-ends around the city. 

Maybe she was just laughing at him more because she knew he could use the ego boost. If that’s all it was, she definitely achieved her goal, but he wanted to think it was more than that. 

Things had gotten so complicated. Casual sex was much easier to navigate when they didn’t really see each other outside of the sex. Her transferring to the nine-nine already complicated things, but them being assigned as partners essentially crumbled their entire arrangement. When she first transferred, they’d stopped meeting up briefly. It was too _risky_ , Amy had said. Work had to come first. And of course, he understood. He even felt the same way, mostly. Well, he didn’t exactly see how them having sex affected their jobs at all, but… he understood that if it _did_ , they should stop. 

It didn’t matter because they’d only lasted a few weeks before they’d stumbled into the bathroom together at the bar, and then they were calling each other every few days or one of them was giving the other _the look_ across their desks or he’d whisper _my place?_ in her ear during the briefing and if she had a problem with any of it, she definitely hadn’t voiced it. 

The thing was that she was getting much more relaxed on her rules, and it was leaving room for confusion. _He_ wasn’t confused. He understood exactly what their relationship was. Rather, his _feelings_ were confused, because now when he picked up food on the way to her apartment, she didn’t try to stop him. So he was spending his days teasing her and fielding her cute glares in response, then he was picking up Thai food and splitting it with her out of takeout containers on her couch while she beat every contestant on Wheel of Fortune, then he made his own game out of trying to keep her distracted enough that she couldn’t answer all the questions on Jeopardy (although she’d surprised him on more than one occasion, fingers locked into his hair as she shouted _what is Belgium?_ , the country where French fries originated) ((side note, he’d learned a lot of new trivia facts this way, and he absentmindedly wondered once if he would have done better in college had he studied with Amy trying to read his textbooks to him with his head between her legs)). 

So while _he_ knew that the change in their relationship had much more to do with logistics and practicality, his stupid, romantic heart sometimes got a mind of its own when she would sleep over just because they were going to the same place in the morning, anyways. 

Pair that with Amy's suggestion to _amend their rules_ , and he got a whole new equation that was extensively more confusing than any other one he knew of, and one that he was pretty certain wouldn’t get less confusing with his head between her legs. Although, maybe if he phrased it like a Jeopardy hint… The category: Exclamations! The hint: Something you might say to someone who has potentially developed what _could, maybe_ be feelings for their friend who they happen to be sleeping with. What is: _Jake’s an idiot!_ , Alex? 

He wasn’t sure that he had feelings for her. But he was sure that she didn’t have feelings like that for him. She would never like him. Why would she? Physical attraction aside, what did he offer her that she couldn’t get from someone else? 

He knew she didn’t have feelings for him. He didn’t really _think_ he had feelings for her either, but every now and then, the thought would occur to him. It seemed like it was happening more and more as of late. He’d be laying in bed with her against his chest, trailing his fingertips between her shoulder blades while her satisfied little hums fell against his neck. Maybe it was the post-orgasm endorphins, or perhaps it was the way her lips pressed softly against his jaw despite her insistence on that being against the rules just a few months earlier. Maybe it was that his mind kept wandering to how _nice_ it felt, them breathing in sync, her quiet yawn bringing a smile to his face. 

It wasn’t so much that he thought _wow, I like this woman._ It was more so that he thought he _could_ like her. He could see a world in which that happened. But _this_ wasn’t that world. In this world, they were partners and they were friends and they had really, _really_ , stupid good sex sometimes, but that was it. And that was all he _wanted_.

Until he was with her. 

When she was there, it was much harder to think clearly. He _wanted_ to make her laugh, he wanted to see her smile. He wanted to tease her until she rolled her eyes, then he wanted to pull her against his chest and kiss the frustrated scowl off of her face. He wanted to hear all of her stories, all of her theories about everything ever, every bit of information she had on every tedious subject, or manual, or police code. 

He could listen to her talk for hours. 

Not that… Not that he _wanted_ to… Just, if it somehow came up… If they had to be crammed together in a tiny motel room for two days on a stakeout, he wouldn’t get tired of her. He didn’t, like, want to just sit around listening to Amy talk all day. That would be weird. It would be _especially weird_ , because he could be having sex with her. And, like… that’s all he was supposed to want from their relationship. So it would be, just, otherworldly weird for him to want to just sit in a room with her and listen to her talk about the ins and outs of the importance of graphing. 

He didn’t like her, okay? 

Although… 

He was laying back against his couch. Originally, he’d intended to turn on a movie, but he got distracted thinking about her (something that didn’t mean _anything_ ) and found himself staring up at the ceiling with her consuming all of his thoughts. The way she looked at him in the car, concern lining all of her features. He’d made a joke about it, but she _did_ care about him. He cared about her, too. He wanted to ask her to come over, but he didn’t want it to be weird. He didn’t want her to feel obligated just because it was his birthday. He glanced down at his phone. He’d be having a much better time if she were there. Should he text her? 

Oh my god. 

Did he like her? 

He jumped when someone knocked at the door. He stared at the door for a moment, trying to figure out who could possibly be there. Did Charles come to help with the raccoon? It hadn’t occurred to him that it was a possibility, but it was totally something Charles would do. 

“Jake? I know you’re still awake.” The voice came through the door. It was muffled, but it definitely wasn’t Charles. There was a tapping sound, a foot against the door. 

“Amy?” 

“Can you open the door? This is heavy.” 

He made a face as he hopped off of the couch. What was heavy? As soon as he swung the door open, she was walking in past him, clad in plaid pajama bottoms and a Tactical Village t-shirt, with approximately six or seven grocery bags in her arms. 

“God, Jake, just leave me outside all night, why don’t you?” She peered her head back at him from the kitchen so she could shoot him a teasing glance as she set the bags down. 

“What are you––are those pajamas? What _is_ all this stuff?” 

Amy smiled at him. “I’m glad you asked.” She began pulling items out of the bags, talking as she did. “So, I decided that you’re not going to have a bad birthday this year.” She gestured to a bag she hadn’t opened yet. “That’s dinner. It’s that pizza thing you like from Tony’s–you know, the calzone but it’s not called a calzone?” 

“You got me a pizza boat?”

“Extra pepperoni. So it’s _extra_ greasy, just how you like it.” 

He placed his hand over his heart dramatically. “You know me so well.” 

She continued taking out her items. “Okay, so I didn’t know what kind of ice cream you liked? So I got my favorite––mint chocolate chip––and then I just got chocolate.”

“So toothpaste and normal, cool, cool.” 

She scowled at him quickly, but then she was back to smiling. “Cake.” She gestured to the box of cupcakes. “Or cupcakes, rather. They only had chocolate, so I hope that’s okay.” 

He gestured to the blue frosting. “Blue is my favorite kind of cake, you did great.” 

“This bag,” she gestured to another sealed bag that matched the others, “is a surprise. _Don’t_ peek. I’ll know if you do.” 

He eyed her carefully, but nodded. 

She sighed as she looked at the contents of the next bag, looking at his face with raised eyebrows before she reached into it. “Okay, now I assume you already have these…” She pulled out a box set of DVDs. “But I didn’t want to assume and be wrong, so I got them just in case. If we’re going to make this the best birthday you’ve ever had, we’re gonna do it right.” 

He didn’t say anything, but this was already the best birthday he’d ever had. He nodded at her and smiled wide. If he spoke, he was sure his voice would have cracked with emotion. She seemed to get the idea, because she smiled softly and continued. 

“Finally, the most important bag: alcohol. Three different kinds. Beer, in case you want to go more casual. Then vodka and whiskey, because I’ve seen you drink both and I wasn’t sure which you’d prefer. Orange soda in case you wanted a chaser. Orangina in case you wanted a _better_ chaser.”

“Okay, Orangina is gross, but you’re being really nice so I’ll let it slide.” 

“Orangina is the true orange soda, but I brought you regular orange soda because it’s your birthday.” 

He shook his head at her. “You didn’t have to do all this, Ames.”

She nodded. “I know.” 

They exchanged an earnest look, smiling quietly at each other for a moment, then she shoved the bag with the rest of the food in it at him. “Okay, eat your pizza canoe and set up the movie, weirdo.” 

She turned back to put the ice cream in the freezer, and the smile on his face was practically burning through his entire body. He didn’t care to correct her adorable mistake, calling the pizza boat a pizza canoe. Amy Santiago was walking around his kitchen in her pajamas, something he never thought he’d see. She brought him snacks and liquor and his favorite movies, and she was presumably about to get drunk with him on his couch with a myriad of blankets between them, and sex was the last thing on his mind because she was the greatest friend, and this was already easily the best birthday he’d ever had, and he was willing to bet that it would be the best one he would ever have for the rest of his life, too. 

He ate quickly, and by the time she was done setting her mystery bag off to the side, he was already finished and waiting for the previews on the Die Hard DVD to cycle through. He sat on the couch, smiling widely at her. 

“How was the canoe?” 

He laughed this time. “The pizza boat? Was amazing.”

She grinned back at him, then walked straight past him and into his bedroom. He quirked an eyebrow, but after a moment, she reappeared with her favorite blanket of his wrapped around her shoulders. He was leaned into the corner of the couch, his legs across most of the cushions. She darted into the kitchen, returning with the bottle of vodka in her hand. She flicked off the light switch, then made her way directly to him, settling comfortably between his legs.

 _Not_ how he thought this would go. 

She wrapped the blanket around them both, shifting to get comfortable against him. His hand found its way to slide across her waist, and he pressed his palm flat against her hip, fingers dragging back and forth slowly. Her back was against his chest, and every now and then she snuggled a little closer. They passed the vodka between themselves, and he buried his face in her hair between laughing with her and defending the greatest movie of all time from her attention to detail.

“There was totally an ambulance in there!” She shouted. 

His fingers traced a path up and down her thigh, but he stopped when she pointed this out. “Oh my god… You’re right, there was!”

They were both tipsy by now, the movie almost over, and he was surprised that his favorite movie, something he had watched probably hundreds of times, could be on, and yet his attention was solely on her. She twisted against him sometime toward the middle of the movie, so her shoulder was slotted between his arm and his side, her arm behind his back, and her head leaning on his chest. Her other hand was on his chest, fingers absentmindedly curled around his t-shirt. 

He was cuddling on the couch with Amy Santiago. And he liked it. 

He liked _her_. 

He liked her way more than just sex (though with each drink they shared, sex loomed more and more into his awareness, and when she laughed, her hips shifted against him and his sweatpants were a thin veil for the semi that she was pretending not to notice, but god it _wasn’t_ an accident when her hand brushed against it on her way to grip his thigh at a particularly violent scene), and he wasn’t one-hundred percent sure where he stood with her. Did _she_ like _him_? Romantic stylez? He didn’t think so, but then she showed up with all this, and his brain was a little fuzzy from the alcohol and... what was he supposed to think? 

That’s what this was, right? The warm feeling in his chest when she was around, the way that he was so incredibly happy to have her in his arms, the way that he wanted to kiss her soft and slow. He had real, tangible feelings for Amy and they went way beyond the feelings he originally felt for her, way beyond the feelings he was _supposed_ to feel for her. 

Right?

Or did she feel the same way? She _did_ show up to his house on his birthday with all of these things. She _was_ resting against him with his heartbeat thrumming in her ear, and she even pressed closer to it at one point, he noticed when her eyes drifted shut for a few minutes before an action scene startled her awake. 

Was she just a really great friend? He’d never done anything like this with any of his other friends. He’d never cuddled with Gina in all the years that he’d known her, and even if they had he didn’t think it would be like this, her settled between his legs, fingers tracing against his chest mindlessly. 

He didn’t have much more time to consider this, because before the movie had even ended, she began shifting and looking up at him and if there was any look he recognized on her, it was this one. Her eyes were wide, feigning innocence and glistening in the light from the TV screen. Her fingers unclasped from his shirt, instead smoothing across his chest, and he tried to pretend he was absorbed in the movie, but he kept stealing glances at her. 

“Jake,” she hummed softly, practically a purr, her fingertips trailing lower on his chest. She giggled as he tried to keep his breath steady, his chest rising and falling evenly under her touch. She sighed, his breath catching when she lifted her hand from his chest and returned it to his thigh. 

“Jake,” she whispered, impossibly softer, and he turned to look at her. She slid her hand from his thigh back up to his chest, her fingers conforming to the curve of his neck as she kissed him. He wanted to kiss her soft and slow, and either she sensed that or she felt the same way, because that’s exactly how she kissed him. Her tongue played against his, eliciting soft sounds from him on her way back down to his lap. 

Her other hand shifted so that within a few minutes, she had one hand on the outside of his sweatpants, gripping him firmly, and the other on his outer thigh, rocking him toward her while she kissed him. After not quite enough stimulation, he was rutting closer of his own volition, head tipping back when she applied a little pressure. 

She giggled, pulling back from the kiss to find him staring longingly at her. “You ready for your gift?” 

Every bit of his self-control faltered. “It’s a sex gift?” 

She giggled again, stealing one more quick kiss and teasingly palming him through his sweatpants a final time. “Oh, it’s a sex gift.” She stood up, leaving him watching excitedly from his seat, and retrieved the final bag that she hadn’t let him see in the kitchen. “I’ll be back in a minute.” 

The anticipation flowed through him as he imagined what she could possibly be hiding in that bag. He followed her lead, allowing himself the slightest bit of pressure through two layers of fabric while he waited for her.

He was caught off guard by the beginning of music before she returned. It was coming from a speaker in the kitchen. She must have set it up while he was setting up the movie. He immediately recognized the song, and his mind was already taking him places before he even saw her. 

_Our secrets moments in your crowded room,_   
_They’ve got no idea about me and you._   
_There is an indentation in the shape of you,_   
_Made your mark on me, a golden tattoo._

He had been impatiently awaiting her arrival from the hallway, and she did not disappoint. She walked out, looking just a little shy, and she left the light in the hallway on, giving him a slightly better view. Her hair, previously tied back, fell in the loose curls she’d been hiding in her ponytail all day. She had on a black dress, which draped over her cleavage and revealed the edge of something lacy underneath. The dress hung at about her mid-thigh, two slits going up to her hips. He could see much more skin than any other time he’d seen her dressed, but she was still almost entirely covered. 

_All of this silence and patience,_   
_Pining in anticipation,_   
_My hands are shaking from holding back from you._

_All of this silence and patience,_   
_Pining and desperately waiting,_   
_My hands are shaking from holding back from all this._

She stepped further into the room, her shoulders curving in a way that he immediately knew meant that she was self-conscious. _Stupidly_ self-conscious, he should say, because she was easily the most beautiful person he had ever seen, walking out of the hallway dressed like _that_ for him and she thought there was a chance that he wouldn’t like it? 

He swallowed hard, shook his head just fractionally. “Ames, you’re…” He trailed off, jaw clenching while his fingers fidgeted by his waist. He wanted to stand up and touch her, wanted to show her exactly how sexy he found her, but he waited for her direction. 

“You like it?” She asked, coming closer once again. She smoothed her hands over the silky material at her thighs, looked down at it as though she was unsure. 

“I have never liked anything more than this,” he said softly, his eyes revelling in every inch of her. “I’m feeling way underdressed, though.” 

_Say my name and everything just stops,_   
_I don’t want you like a best friend._   
_Only bought this dress so you could take it off,_   
_Take it off._

She stepped in front of him slowly, watched his jaw clenching again at the prospect of her being close enough to touch, yet his hands stayed in his lap. She reached down and grabbed them, pulling them up to her hips. The cool fabric slipped through his fingers as she pulled his hands up to her breasts, held them there long enough for him to feel that there was only a layer of lace underneath. He hummed, his hands moving from her chest back to her waist and pulling her closer to him. 

“Bup, bup, bup,” she mimicked him from a previous encounter, pressing her finger to his lips as he neared some exposed skin with them. He looked up at her, but kept his hands in place on her hips. She leaned over him, kissing him in a way that was still slow, but was somehow exponentially dirtier. She laughed as his grip on her tightened. 

She took a step back, shrugging. “I know the song says I only bought the dress so you could take it off, but I was thinking maybe I would take it off _for_ you.”

“Amy Santiago… are you about to do a strip tease to Taylor Swift?” 

She shrugged, toying with the thin strap on her shoulder. “Is it a tease if I actually take all my clothes off?” 

She was already running her hands across her body by the time she finished the sentence, so any words he had died on his lips as he watched her. She smiled playfully, taking a few slow steps backwards. 

He wasn’t entirely sure what he should expect. He’d seen Amy dance before––if you could even really call it dancing. He’d watched her drag Rosa to the dancefloor at the Christmas party, watched from a distance as her hips swayed unceremoniously, saw the onslaught of elbows that his third grade tap teacher would’ve banished him from class for. She was adorable, and she was hilarious, but he wasn’t sure exactly how that was going to translate to a moment like this. He was bracing himself, sure that he shouldn’t let even the tiniest laugh slip, and if the elbows came out, it was going to take a lot of concentration to keep the laughter behind his tipsy lips. 

She turned away from him, her hips swaying gently to the music. She flashed a look at him over her shoulder, her fingers tangling in her hair for a moment, then just as quickly, her hair was against her back again, her hands sliding up her thighs, dragging the fabric with them and _nothing about this was funny_. Her slow movements paired with the steady beat of the music had him mesmerized. She exuded confidence with every movement, a complete shift from the way she had been when she walked into the room. 

She turned back to face him, sliding the fabric up her hips again. She rocked in sync with the music, and when she made her way back over to him, she was laughing softly at his dazed expression. She settled a knee between his legs, angling her other leg so that she could run her hand across it temptingly. His eyes followed her movements, peeking at the lace underneath before she adjusted, her knees bracketing his thighs. 

She took his hands in hers, guiding them along her curves in time with the music. He watched as her hips rotated, then his eyes flickered to her face. She repositioned in his lap, grinding against him and laughing quietly when he looked like he might actually fall apart in response. She guided one of his hands back up her body, giving him adequate time to feel her on the way. The music was keeping her pace slow and torturous, her hips grinding against him hard. Then his hand was on her cheek, his thumb caressing her bottom lip, and he practically shuddered when she whimpered against his palm. 

“Amy…” 

She laughed again, shifting so she could apply continuous pressure in his lap. Her fingers traced up the back of his neck, and she smiled against his lips when she kissed him. He looked up into her eyes as she pulled back, helplessly stretching to follow her. He groaned softly as she pulled off of his lap, his fingers slipping away from her hips as she went. She grinned, her fingers trailing down his thighs as she slid down to her knees, keeping close to his body as she went. He shook his head at her, defenseless to her teasing, and then she was laughing softly and turning back away from him again. 

Her hands explored her own skin, teasingly dragging the silky fabric of her dress up her hips and back down again, giving him glimpses of more with each shake of her hips. She looked back at him one last time, smiling seductively and capturing a finger gently between her teeth before she was working the dress back over her hips. She guided the fabric up her back, and it was like he was watching it all happen in slow motion. Black lace lined her back, the pattern spilling onto her hips and leading his eyes up between her shoulder blades. His mind wandered for a moment, distracted by how pretty the fabric looked in contrast with her skin. He liked lace on her, would like to see her in a lacy dress, maybe across the table from him at a dimly lit restaurant and––

His eyebrows drew together for a fraction of a second. Those thoughts were extremely misplaced. That was a problem he was going to have to deal with sooner rather than later. But right now, in front of him, he had something else he needed to handle. 

Amy had the dress pulled up over her head, and she was dragging it out so long, building the tension with each passing second, but then her hips stilled. She was moving a little bit, but she wasn’t moving in time with the music anymore. Her voice was muffled when she spoke. 

“Jake…” She shifted again, and he could tell now that something wasn’t going as planned. 

He stood up, walking toward her. “Are you okay?” 

She groaned, but it was half-rooted in laughter. “I think the dress is caught on my earring.” 

Jake stepped closer, his hands hesitantly gripping her hips to both steady her and let her know that he was there. The dress was pulled entirely over her head so she couldn’t see, and her elbow was twisted up and caught. She pulled at it, but she winced from where it was caught in her earring. 

“Jake, I need help, I can’t––” She cut off, sighing in frustration as she tried helplessly to pull her arm out of the dress. 

“Hey, hold on––” He guided her toward the couch, keeping his hands on her hips to keep her from stumbling too much. “I’m gonna turn on the light.” 

He ran over and flipped the light switch, then turned back to her. He couldn’t hold in his laughter at the sight in front of him. Amy, contorted all crazy with her head stuck in her dress. 

“Don’t laugh,” she whined, and he was running back to her, trying to stifle his laughter. 

“I’m sorry, this is just––” He snickered quietly. “It feels like something like this could only happen to one of us. And I’m glad it was you, not me.” He thought he heard her laugh under the dress. He was trying to move the dress to get to her earring, but it seemed that every way he pulled at the fabric just made it more uncomfortable for her. 

“Ow, _Jake_ ––”

“I’m sorry! I’m––” He trailed off for a moment. “I can’t get you out without pulling your arm. How did you even do this?” 

She huffed, and he could tell she was getting frustrated. “Can you cut me out of it?” 

Jake whined audibly. “You want me to cut this dress?” 

“I need you to.” 

“But I like it so much,” he drew out his final word. 

“Jake, I’m _stuck_. Priorities.” 

He sighed. “Okay, I’ll go get scissors.” 

“Can you turn off the music?” She called out, and he laughed again. He hadn’t even noticed that Taylor Swift was still singing in the background, but Amy sounded pretty annoyed about it. 

When he returned, he sat down on the couch, lightly tugging her wrist to pull her down with him. She moved more easily than he expected, and came tumbling into his lap with a little gasp. It occurred to him, super briefly, that if her elbow wasn’t tucked behind her head in such a crazy way, having her blindfolded might not be a bad idea. He’d file that suggestion away for a time that wasn’t so tense. 

She shifted in his lap, and he barely stifled a groan at the contact. Now was _not_ the time. 

“How do you want me?” 

He sighed. “Listen, Ames, you can’t just _ask me things like that_ right now. You’re in my lap in lingerie and–– _so_ hot, by the way.” He smoothed his fingers across the lace on her hip. “Is this new?––”

“Jake––”

“Right, not the time, not the time.”

“Don’t cut my hair.”

“Hold still.” 

“Well how do you want me to sit?” 

_”Still.”_

She sighed heavily, shaking a little bit as she did. 

“You didn’t believe me when I said my birthday was always bad, but I bet you’ll believe me when I accidentally cut your hair because you won’t stop moving.” 

He finally snipped enough of the dress out of the way that she could move again, and they worked together to free her earring from the dress. She quickly tugged the dress off of her head and tossed it on the floor quite a distance away. 

Jake laughed again, but Amy grimaced, pulling the blanket back into her lap. 

“So much for being sexy,” she mumbled. 

“Hey,” he murmured back, sliding his hand up her outer thigh from outside the blanket. She peered over at him. “Getting stuck in the dress doesn’t make you not sexy. There are tons of guys who are into hot, goofy girls.” 

Amy groaned quietly, but she was already moving out of the blanket some. “I mean, I personally don’t know any of those guys,” he continued, a teasing smirk on his lips. “But I’m sure there’s some weirdo out there who’d be into that.” 

“Yeah?” She asked, leaning close enough that she could press a quick kiss onto his lips without touching him any more than that. 

He hummed against her lips. “Mhm. Probably has a soul patch.” 

Her laughter bubbled out of her lips. “Oh, is that right?” 

His hand found its way to her lower back, sliding up and pulling her closer as he kissed her. “Mmmhmm. His name’s definitely Jessie.”

She laughed again. “Not Jake?” 

“Oh, definitely not Jake. I don’t know any Jakes who would be into a girl like _that.”_

“A girl like that?” She leaned closer, pushing him back into the couch cushions and peppering him with kisses. “What kind of girl, exactly, would that be?” 

He groaned softly as she situated herself in his lap, then completely lost himself in kissing her. He was looking at her with _that_ look, like she put all the stars in the sky and somehow also knocked them all out of the sky all at the same time, when she prompted him with a gentle _hmm?_

He chuckled quietly. “You know the type. Super hot, but that’s not even the best thing about her. She’s smart,” he paused to press a gentle kiss to her lips, “and really good at basically everything she does,” this pause was a little lengthier, his fingers tangling through her hair with this kiss, “except dancing, and, it seems, stripping.” He laughed at her little offended gasp, laughed more when she pulled her face away from his kiss. He shifted her off of his lap, turning so he was hovering over her with a knee pressed into the cushions between her thighs. She hummed against his lips when he kissed her, a bit rougher than before. “She’ll try to fool you into thinking she’s all serious all the time, but she’s got a pretty solid sense of humor hidden in there somewhere. Or, at the very least,” he laughed into the kiss she interrupted him with, “she’s got a binder full of jokes she found on the internet and memorized.” 

Her fingers dug gently into his side, causing him to jerk and lean into her, laughing. She pulled him closer, her fingers brushing against his jaw. Her lips brushed against his as she spoke, and she scarcely evaded the kisses he was trying to interrupt her with. “Well it’s a good thing I’m not one of those girls then, huh?” 

His head tilted to the side. He thought it was pretty obvious that he had been talking about her. “Oh? How’s that?” 

Her tongue flicked out between her lips, teasingly tracing along his bottom lip. Her laughter fell against his lips, and everything about it was intoxicating. Everything about _her_ was intoxicating. “I’m not a girl, Jake. I’m a woman.” 

She kissed him hungrily, and the low moan that escaped his lips in response was enough to make her forget all about the dress fiasco. She was surprised when he pulled away excitedly, looking at her with his mouth open in realization. “Wait, _that’s_ diction?!” 

She shook her head, laughing softly at him. “Oh my god, shut up.” 

“No, remember you were telling me at work and I just didn’t get it but––god, if you would’ve just explained it like _that_... It makes perfect sense now.” 

She pulled at his waist band, tugging him closer to her body again. “Your learning is extremely sex-motivated. Got it. Now shut up and _kiss me._ ” 

He had never been great in school. He got okay grades, but he had a lot of trouble dedicating himself to completing his work. There were a few good teachers here and there that made school a little more fun. Science classes were always cool, between building little cars for physics and making things explode in chemistry (he got detention for three weeks, but he still didn’t fail the class). The thing was that he wasn’t going to spend all of his time at school, doing school work, and then go home and spend all of his free time doing school work there, too. It was hard enough for him to focus when he had someone there to make him. Sitting at home by himself, the knowledge that there was a marathon of Saved by the Bell reruns calling his name… he didn’t have a chance. He was lucky to have always been a pretty good test taker, which he was glad to find followed him into adulthood. He didn’t even study for his exams in the academy. Jake Peralta _didn’t_ study.

So why, then, did he enjoy studying Amy Santiago so much? 

Amy Santiago relied on rules. She thrived on them. He had always shied away from rules, taken every precaution to make sure that he didn’t miss an opportunity to break them. _Especially_ the silly ones, rules like _no soft kisses_. He was learning which of her rules were okay for him to break and which ones needed a bit more attention. 

Her rules at work, for example, were to be followed. No pulling her into supply closets and initiating anything _even if this is your favorite pantsuit, Jake_. Soft kisses was an acceptable rule to break. She closed her eyes, kissed him back. He felt her hum against his lips as he trailed the kisses down to her throat. Whispering against her skin in moments like that? Not a good rule to break. It made her tense up, even when she was almost asleep. Whispering against her skin in more heated moments? Encouraged. The proof was in the way that she arched toward each whisper, each _I love the way you taste_ punctuated with a flick of his tongue. 

He never had trouble keeping his attention on her. In fact, he seemed to almost have trouble tearing his attention _away_ from her. It turned out that he loved learning, when he liked the subject. 

And it turned out that a subject that he was particularly fond of… was her. 

And in learning her, in learning her reactions and idiosyncrasies, her desires and fears learned through observation, not through sharing, he’d learned a very important fact about her. She did _not_ want him to like her. Not like that. Not like he did. Not like he does. 

Jake Peralta didn’t like rules. The only thing he ever liked about them was breaking them. 

Never in his life had he craved a rule the way that he did now. Because maybe a rule would have prevented this from happening. They made a rule about Amy falling for him, but they never made a rule against him falling for Amy. 

He never had a chance. Right from the very beginning, when his eyes would scan through the crowds at work events looking for her, he should have known. Right from that first interaction, when they bumped into each other and he found himself asking her to help him with that bet, he should have known. Right from that first night, when she pulled his hair too hard and he still missed the way it felt when he woke up in the morning, he should have known. 

He should’ve been safeguarding himself, because he’d known all along that she didn’t want a relationship. She’d made it clear. This was sex. That’s it. And that was fine––it should’ve been fine. Why wasn’t it just fine? Why was he craving more? Why wasn’t friendship with a little bit of really good sex on the side just enough for him? 

Why was he torturing himself with thinking about how much she cares about him, while she’s sinking to her knees in front of him? She came here, she did all this, she played a Taylor Swift song, she brought Die Hard, she brought pizza. She was kind and gentle when he needed it, but wasn’t afraid to push him when he was wrong or when he deserved it. These were all things that could be described by other aspects of their relationship. She cared about him––of course, they’re partners. Gentle with him when he needed it––of course, they were friends. It’s not like it was a secret that he liked any of those things, not like she had to think very hard to come up with those things. So why was it so touching? 

It had to be the sex, right? That’s what was throwing him off. Had she been a normal friend, one who he didn’t have sex with four times a week, it would have been easier for him to separate all of these feelings. 

One thing was for sure: He was falling. Straight off a cliff, nothing to break his fall. He could see Amy at the bottom, but she wasn’t going to catch him. Unfortunately, that fact didn’t mean he was falling any less. 

He liked her. He felt it more every time he was with her, every time she flirted back, every time she kissed him. He felt it more with each time she left him breathless, each laugh they shared, with each time that she ducked her head against his chest and fell asleep to the rhythm of his heartbeat. He’d been denying it for longer than he knew, much longer than he’d be willing to admit. But there was no denying it now. 

They’d had this arrangement, meeting more frequently at some times than others, for six months. It happened slowly, he thought. It felt like it was hitting him like a truck right now, but he’d been chasing away inklings of feelings for months, convincing himself that what he was feeling wasn’t _that_. 

But it definitely was _that_. This smart, goofy, beautiful woman, this woman who noticed him, who heard him, who paid attention to him… This woman who knew how to deal with him on his worst days, knew exactly how to pull him out of the depths of his own mind with just a simple conversation… This woman who cared about him, be it as a friend or more, who went out of her comfort zone to make sure that he had a good time… This woman to whom his attraction was _electric_... For him, it was more than just attraction. It was more than just friendship. He had real, tangible, strong feelings for her, and he couldn’t figure out how he had pretended for so long that they weren’t there when they were hitting him so overwhelmingly now. 

He thought about all the times that this thought had crossed his mind, that he’d idly wondered about their relationship and the possibility of there ever being a future between them. He knew that it was ridiculous, usually handled it as a passing thought that didn’t mean anything. He wondered how he so easily brushed his feelings off then. He wondered how all it took for him to recognize that his feelings were undeniable was a mishap, such an adorably _Amy_ mishap, in the middle of an unexpected striptease that she’d planned for his birthday. 

And what did he do now that he knew that he felt this way about her? 

He smiled back at her as she grinned up at him

He would shove it down, ignore it as best as he could. He wouldn’t talk about it. Not with anyone, least of all her. He would hope that it never came out. The way he saw it, there was no real resolution to this problem. He liked her and she didn’t like him back. He could trick himself into thinking that perhaps she did, perhaps her friendship was motivated by feelings that were just a little deeper than she let on. But he knew how things actually were. When they were fully clothed, when they were standing in front of each other at work, she didn’t have feelings for him. He was just getting confused. The intimacy, the same thing that had turned Amy off of the soft kisses when they’d first started doing this, was the same thing that was leaving him in turmoil while she had him gripping the couch cushions to distract from the overwhelming pleasure her tongue was hurdling him toward. It brought on a bunch of confusing feelings for him. Should he feel guilty that he’d developed these feelings when they had agreed that that isn’t what this was? 

He would have to worry about those feelings and all of the complications that came with them another time. Right now, he would just have to enjoy it as it all hit him. Every feeling, every emotion, every sensation that she provoked in him in the moment. In every moment. He’d take it all in stride, because what else could he do? 

“Happy birthday, Jake,” she whispered as she climbed back up his body, each kiss pressed against his skin sending him jolting like he was being prodded with exposed wires, not her soft lips brushing against him. His hands caressed her hips, running back and forth over her sides, her ribs, her thighs, anywhere that he could touch her. He hummed against her lips, his breathing anything but stable. 

“Take this off, take this off,” he panted softly between kisses. 

She giggled against his lips. “It’s okay, Jake. We have time. It’s all about you tonight.” She pulled her straps off of her shoulders, slowly pulling the lace down her torso. She held his eye contact when she repeated her question from earlier in the night. “How do you want me?” 

Soft, he wanted to say. _Slow._ He wanted to touch every inch of her, make sure she knew exactly how perfect he thought every centimeter of her was, no matter how long it took. He wanted to share each breath with her as he pulled her closer to him, something more tender than fucking. He wanted the intimacy, the romance of it all, the passion that they always shared in a less frantic presentation. 

But he couldn’t say that. 

So instead he settled for grasping the bunched up lace around her hips, helping her to pull it down further. She shifted so that his hands could follow her curves, dragging the lace slowly across the path. She moved her legs into his lap as he pulled the lace down them, tossed it to the floor, and let his hands find her legs again. She was shifting closer already when he pulled her into his lap. She wrapped an arm around his neck, her other hand pushing against the couch behind her to help prop herself up as they moved together. 

It wasn’t soft. It wasn’t slow. It was desperate, it was full of desire, his hands pulling her to him rhythmically. She rocked closer to him, her moans against his lips only spurring him to help her bounce in his lap faster until he was lost in her, crumbling for her, her lips on his neck, her whispers in his ear, somehow everywhere at once, and she knew exactly what to say, exactly how to touch him and _god, they fit together so perfectly._

“Jake, fuck, you feel so good––just like that, please, yes, _please_.” She was quiet for a moment, her breathy whimpers buried in his neck. Then, as if something had shifted completely, she was looking into his eyes. She sighed against his lips. “You gonna come for me, Jake?”

He hummed a response, trying to keep his eyes on hers and _fuck_ , how did she flip it around that quickly on him every time? She pushed back against his chest a little bit, leaning him further back against the couch so that he was still sitting up, but he was slightly more reclined. She was giving herself more leverage, a different angle that seemed to _really_ be working for her, if her grip on his thigh and the change in pitch of every sound she made were any indicator. 

“You like when I ride you like this?” His hands lingered on her hips as he arched toward the feeling because _yes, fuck_ he liked it. He liked when she talked like that, loved how she felt. 

He could list off all of the ways that he would never measure up to being the man that she deserved, the man that she wanted. He would have all the time in the world to reflect on that. But for now, his mouth, his hands, and his mind were preoccupied with her in a different way. For now, he was good enough for her, at least in this way. For now, he could live in these feelings with her. For now. 

Minutes later, he was groaning as her hips slowed, still guiding him deeper into her one time, two times, three times until he was gasping her name into her neck, biting down on her shoulder to keep himself quiet. 

It was almost as if she couldn’t stop kissing him. She wrapped her arms around his neck, leaning him all the way back into the cushions and _fuck_ , he wasn’t even sure how he was still hard after the orgasm he’d just had, but she was moving her hips against his and _how_ did she make him feel like that? Her breathy sighs interrupted her voice in his ear as she brought herself closer. He somehow had enough awareness to slip his hand between their bodies, rubbing intermittently with as much focus as he could afford when she was doing _that_ to him. He was seeing stars, unsure how something that felt this good could also feel vaguely like a form of torture. 

He found renewed energy when her fingers tightened in his hair. She broke out of the kiss, whimpering against his lips as he took control of their rhythm. He held onto her hips, tipping her to the side so that he could shift their position. He was incoherent, but he couldn’t shut up, and it would probably be embarrassing if he had the capacity to care about anything other than the way that her words were just as disjointed as his. 

He dipped his head against her chest, his tongue finding salty skin as he decorated her skin with shades of red and purple. God, he loved the sound she made when he sucked on that spot right there, wanted to compare it to the sounds she made when he kissed every other part of her. 

He could feel himself getting close again. He doubled down on his efforts, hitching her leg around his hip as he pushed her further into the cushions. 

_“Fuck,_ Jake,” she gasped. He groaned as her nails pressed into the skin just below his shoulder blade. 

“Feels so good, feels so,” he trailed off on a hum, biting her neck gently. She gasped, then pulled his face to hers for a kiss. He leaned his forehead against hers. “I’m gonna… I can’t,” his breathing was getting shallower by the second. 

“Me too.” She held his eye contact for a second, nodding at him as she shifted her hips. “Right there.” 

“Yeah?” He followed her directions, taking every ounce of self control he had to slow himself down. She arched toward each deep, slow stroke. “You ready?” 

She nodded at him, her soft moan getting lost against his lips as he increased his speed. They fell apart together, a symphony of sounds, legs almost shakier than their breathing. They both whined when he pulled away from her, only for him to lean unceremoniously back against her chest. He was entirely spent, unaware that he even had that _in him_. A shift from the usual, it was Amy’s fingers intertwining with his hair, her fingers dancing against his damp skin. 

They laid that way, just breathing together for he didn’t know how long. After a while, she tugged gently at his hair. “You awake?” 

“Mmmm?” He hummed softly, all but refusing to move away from her. 

“Ice cream.”

“Mmmm,” he agreed. 

She pulled his flannel on, buttoning one single button in the middle. She pulled him into the kitchen, and she only protested for a second when he lifted her onto the counter to kiss her again. It _was_ his birthday, after all, and if he wanted to kiss her while they ate ice cream in their underwear, who was she to deny him that?

They shared mint chocolate chip ice cream out of the carton. She squealed when he pushed the icy carton against her thigh, but she accepted his minty kisses as a proper apology. Soon enough, the ice cream was all but forgotten, apology kisses turned to her legs wrapped around his waist turned to fingers tugging her underwear out of the way and _how did either of them have more in them after what had happened a little over an hour earlier?_

She laughed when he quirked an eyebrow and glanced over toward the container of cupcakes, and when he asked how she felt about getting a little messy, she unbuttoned her single button, took the cupcake out of his hand, and held his eye contact as she swiped some of the frosting off the top of the cupcake and onto her chest. The smile spread across his face as he helped her to decorate her skin with the blue frosting (namely where he wrote _nerd_ in large letters across her chest) was almost comparable to the smile he had as he licked the frosting off of her. 

It turned out that blue frosting stained skin, and no matter how much he kissed and licked and tasted, a trail of blue adorned her chest. They had to take it to the shower, and by the time they were done in there, they were both very clean and _very_ exhausted.

He had a lot to think about. He had no business being awake, and he could tell as soon as they snuggled into his bed that he didn’t have long before his eyes were drifting shut. She held him close to her, humming what he was pretty sure was supposed to be happy birthday as she played with his hair.

He could no longer say that he’d never had a good birthday. He just had the best birthday of his life, and he owed every happy moment in it to Amy Santiago. From the morning time, from following the slightest of leads on their case when she could have refused, from gentle advice to getting him out of going to the bar. From showing up at his apartment unannounced, the thing that he needed most but never would have been willing to ask for. From the food, to the movies, to the liquor, to the cake. The incredible sex he’d had with her didn’t even make the list of his top five favorite things about this day. And _that_ was alarming. 

He had a _lot_ to think about (to stress about, to spiral over). But just for tonight, he could fall asleep with her voice in his ear. Just for tonight, he could accept that without too much thought. 

Just for tonight, he could pretend that it all meant more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Originally, this chapter had a biiiiig part at the end in Amy's perspective, but it felt misplaced, so it's going to get its own chapter. ¨̮ We love last minute changes. 
> 
> weeeeee hope you liked this stupid long chapter pls comment & help correct this MOOD I've been in lately ily thanks bye


	8. can't decide if it's a choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title from Taylor Swift's Treacherous.
> 
> _I can't decide if it's a choice,_   
>  _Getting swept away._   
>  _I hear the sound of my own voice,_   
>  _Asking you to stay._
> 
> _And all we are is skin and bone,_   
>  _Trained to get along._   
>  _Forever going with the flow,_   
>  _But you're friction._
> 
> _This slope is treacherous,_   
>  _This path is reckless,_   
>  _This slope is treacherous,_   
>  _I, I, I, like it._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is like 16k words so I APOLOGIZE. Also enter an original character (technically two, but one is just mentioned), a bit of a backstory for Ames, and why participate in self care when you can just have jake!care? 
> 
> Hope this gives you something to do during quarantine!!

Kylie started this. 

She planted the seeds during their phone call on Amy’s way too long drive to Albany. Approximately three hours _without_ traffic (and oh, she hit traffic). 

It was during these three hours (and forty-five minutes) that Kylie said the words that would catapult Amy into the depths of every thought she did not want to face. 

“So, how’s your boyfriend doing, anyway?” 

She practically choked on the breath she had been taking. She had to duck her head into the crook of her elbow to cough away the burning breath. “I’m sorry, my what?” 

“What’s his name? Jack? Jake?”

She forced a laugh. “Jake?” Her voice went up a little higher as she continued. “Peralta?” She scoffed. “My boyfriend? Please.” 

She could hear the face that Kylie was making even without seeing her. It was a face she knew well, her lips pressed flat together, the severe eye roll that went with it. “Amy, you’re definitely dating him.” 

This laugh came a little more easily. “I have _never_ been on a date with Jake Peralta.” 

“I’m sorry, what exactly would you call all that time you spend with him?” 

“We’re friends. Friends hang out.” 

“Mhmm.” Kylie was quiet for a moment, and Amy was trying desperately to think of something to change the subject, but she came up empty handed. “We’ve been friends for a long time, Amy. And you’ve never _once_ tried to sleep with me while we were hanging out.” 

“Okay, you know that’s ridiculous,” Amy shot back. 

Kylie laughed. “I’m only being as ridiculous as you are. I saw how you two looked at each other when you barely knew each other. You spend like half your nights at his apartment now.” 

“Okay? I’ve stayed at your house before too. And other friends’.”

“Uh-huh. And how many of those friends were you actively sleeping with while doing it?” Amy was silent. “That’s what I thought. And beyond that—how many of those friends did you cuddle up with while watching _Die Hard_ , of all things?” 

“Friends can totally cuddle!”

“How many times have we cuddled?” Kylie waited much longer than she needed to. She knew Amy wasn’t trying to think of the number. The answer was zero. “What about you and Rosa? You two cuddled up lately?” 

“That’s different—”

“Why, because Jake’s a guy? You two didn’t even have sex that time. That makes it _worse_.”

“He’s not my boyfriend.” 

“Maybe he should be!” 

Amy’s following laugh was laced with acidity. “That’s… It doesn’t… I don’t even like Jake like that. I told you, it’s just sex.” 

“Yup.” 

“Kylie, it’s _just sex.”_

“Uh-huh.” 

“Oh my _god_ , you’re the worst. He doesn’t even like me.” 

“Oh, is that what this is about? Are you scared he doesn’t like you back?” 

“He can’t like me back—”

“He totally likes you back—”

“He _can’t_ like me _back_ ,” Amy snapped back, “because _I_ don’t like _him._ It’s just sex.” 

There was a long pause. Kylie sighed. “Do you think he likes you, though?” 

“Of course he doesn’t like me. Jake and I talked about this and we agreed that we both wanted the same thing.” 

“Which is just sex.” She stated it more than asked it. Amy made some vague sound of confirmation. “Right. But why?” 

“What?” 

“I asked why. Why is that all you want? Because from what I’ve seen—and from what you’ve told me during the many times that you won’t shut up about him—”

“I don’t not shut up about him.” 

“Yeah, _whatever_. From the many times that you _don’t_ not shut up about him,” Amy rolled her eyes as if Kylie could see her, “it sounds like you two would be perfect for each other.” 

“Jake and I are too different.” 

“Opposites attract.” 

“Exactly. And we _are_ attracted to each other. Physically.” 

“Why don’t you like him then?” 

“I—” She paused, clearing her throat to try and buy herself a little time. The thing was… she didn’t have an answer. It wasn’t that she _didn’t_ like him. 

It was that she shouldn’t. 

Jake Peralta was a thunderstorm. He was loud and excitable, impossible to look away from. Once he decided where he was going, he committed. He doubled down on a direction and there was essentially nothing that could stop him from reaching his destination. He was something to marvel at. He was deep and full of complexity that people often looked past, seeing only the puffy clouds on the surface. But there was so much more to him than what people saw, probably even more to him than what he allowed her to see. 

The thing about thunderstorms was that it was so easy for them to get out of control. It was so easy for her to get swept up in him, the soothing sound of rain tapping against the windows that made its home in his voice, the strong winds of his arms enveloping her. Each lightning strike caught her off guard, and it held her attention until the next crack of thunder. Be it solving a case alongside her at work, simply talking while they sat across the desk from one another, or while they were being a little more personal at home––his mind and his words and his execution of everything he did had her full attention, then he was cracking another joke, distracting from whatever he’d just said that felt a little _too smart_ or a little _too serious._

But Amy had _plans._ Plans that had made a home in her head and her heart years earlier, plans that she had been working and striving toward. Plans that she had been sacrificing for. Each plan was a sandcastle, measured and built a safe distance from the tide. She had calculated every risk, built safeguards for all the possible complications. She had planned for this, she had thought ahead, and _nothing_ was going to uproot her plans. 

Cue Jake Peralta. 

She never saw him coming. No weather report could have prepared her for the forecast that he would set off across her landscape. A hurricane in her head, something even stronger in her heart. Tornadoes ripped through her emotions when he was around, leaving her shaken up and confused as his heartbeat lulled her to sleep. She felt a pull toward him, something magnetic, almost gravitational. He was the moon, and she was the tide. He pulled her in, and when she let her guard down, her waves crashed against the shore. The harder he pulled, the further onto the shore she went until she crept right alongside the edge of her sandcastles. 

The question wasn’t _who_ would destroy the castles. The question was who would destroy them _first?_ Between the threat of her tide on one side and his storm clouds looming just out of reach on the other… The fate of her future, a future with him, was predetermined.

And she couldn’t let herself falter. She couldn’t let everything she’d worked for all be in vain. She couldn’t watch the future that she had carefully cultivated for herself fade out of her line of sight simply because she got a little distracted by… _him_. He was kind, and he was thoughtful. He was funny all the time, even when his teasing bothered her in the moment, she found herself giggling to herself about things he’d said later in the day. He was open with her, honest about himself and who he was and unafraid to share pieces of his past, pieces in herself that she had trouble unravelling to anyone, much less to him. But she’d been in relationships, and she knew how they ended. 

That’s what they did. They always ended. 

Being with him was the equivalent of driving a car down the freeway with no brakes. It would be great while it lasted, but she had no control, and eventually it would all come tumbling to a violent end. 

If Jake Peralta was an open flame, she was gasoline. They’d caught fire so quickly. If she let it stick… She could see it all. They’d burn bright, they’d burn hot… But then the flame would flicker out, their heat unsustainable without the kindling.

Was he _capable_ of bringing kindling? To be fair, she hadn’t asked him head on, but his refusal to change their set of rules felt a lot like an avoidance of all things committal. 

She couldn’t set aside her plans for what would just turn out to be another burning ember in her heart. She wasn’t sure if she had it in her to smother the flame if it got out of control, wasn’t sure if she could bear to see it fade out on its own, either. The safest choice was to never light the match at all.

Even if sometimes things that he did or said made her feel like there was a chance that they could be more than what they were. She couldn’t afford the distraction when she knew that’s ultimately all it would end up being. 

“So you’re just not gonna answer me?” 

Amy sighed again. “Look, I just don’t wanna talk about this, Kylie. That’s all there is to it.” 

Kylie sighed back, longer and more drawn out than Amy’s had been. “Fine. But I’m here when you change your mind.” 

“I won’t.” 

“Whatever.” 

So by the time she got to the hotel, after the following conversations with Kylie that just felt a little tense, she was already on edge. Pair that with bumping into Teddy on her way to the desk— _why was he even here?_ —and she had way more on her mind than she needed to be dealing with. She wasn’t great at cooking, but she was pretty sure that stress about her not boyfriend plus stress about her ex-boyfriend added to _important speech in front of even more important colleagues_ was not a recipe for success. 

This was all on her mind when she bumped into yet another person she didn’t want to see: Jeremy Winkler. 

Jeremy Winkler was the closest thing to a true enemy that Amy had. They were in the academy together. She and Jeremy had been at the top of their class, and while Amy wanted that top spot just as badly as him, she still had morals that prevented her from manipulating her way into that position—something which Jeremy was apparently not as concerned about. He’d cheated his way to being at the top of their academy class all those years ago, and it looked like he cheated his way into being at this conference, if the grin that made Amy’s skin crawl was any indicator. 

“Amy Santiago, as I live and breathe.” He walked straight toward her, and her breathing hitched before she had any chance at regulating it. “How are you doing? You look great.”

Her eyebrows drew together, her skin crawling at the comment. “Jeremy… How are—”

“I heard that you were giving a speech at this conference. Ya’know, I couldn’t resist the chance to see you give another one of your _famous_ speeches.” 

She averted her eyes. He was trying to intimidate her, trying to make her uncomfortable. She was in an unfamiliar environment, surrounded by superior officers that already made her feel intimidated and uncomfortable, and running into Jeremy brought her right back to being twenty-three, right back to standing in front of her peers and giving the least eloquent speech of her life, right back to the disappointment on her father’s face, right back to the anxiety attack in the bathroom after she’d ran off stage. 

“Hey, uh… Amy, everything alright over here?” 

The familiar voice did _not_ set her at ease. There was still a crease between her eyebrows when she shifted her attention from the floor up to Teddy, who was now standing next to her. He regarded her with concern before turning to look at the man in front of her. 

“Uh… Yeah.” Her voice was small. “Everything’s fine.” 

She watched as Teddy and Jeremy looked at each other. “Hi. I’m Amy’s…” He looked back down at her for a moment, long enough for her eyes to flick back to the floor. “Teddy. I’m Teddy.”

Jeremy quirked an eyebrow, but nodded. He extended his hand forward for Teddy to shake. “Sergeant Jeremy Winkler.”

“Sergeant?” Amy stared up at him. “How are you a sergeant? We left the academy at the same time, and the next exam isn’t for—”

“Three months?” He grinned that stupid grin again. “Departmental need. They had me take the test off schedule because they felt I was the best suited for the open position. I mean… I _was_ the top of my class, right? Guess they saw something in me.” 

Amy nodded. “Well, congratulations, _Sergeant._ I’m gonna… I have to… Bye.” 

She turned abruptly on her heel and walked off toward the elevator, dragging her suitcase behind her. Suddenly, the weight she was pulling felt a lot lighter. 

“Here, let me.” 

She resisted a groan as she turned to look at him, her fingers staying firmly wrapped around the handle of her suitcase. “I’m fine, Teddy. I’ve got it.” 

He set the suitcase back down, but his hand remained on the handle. “That was the guy from the academy, right?” 

She pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to fight off the impending headache. “Yeah. That’s him.” 

“He seems like a dick.” 

She scoffed. “Yeah. Great observation, Teddy. I’m gonna go.” 

“Hey, wait.” He didn’t remove his hand from her suitcase. “I’m really sorry about your precinct closing.” 

“I mean…” She sighed. “You’re kind of the one that closed it, but thanks, I guess?” She tugged at her suitcase again. This time, he let it go in favor of reaching for her arm. She tensed when he grabbed her, so he let go and held his hands up innocently. 

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry! But wait, I didn’t close your precinct. I just did the audit.”

“And our precinct closing had nothing to do with what happened between us during our audit?”

“No, Amy. Of course not. I mean, it sucked, but I’m a professional. If I thought I would have a problem being objective about your precinct, then I would have asked for them to assign a different auditor.” 

She hadn’t realized that she’d crossed her arms, but she let them fall to her sides. That made sense. That sounded like Teddy. Maybe she had been demonizing him all this time, but his only crime had been that he was generally uninteresting. 

“Why did we get closed then?” 

Teddy shrugged. “There were some expenditures that didn’t add up. Something to do with your captain, I think. It was easier to close the precinct and reassign the good detectives than it was to find a new captain for your precinct _and_ close another one.” 

“I’m sorry, I thought…” 

“I mean, it’s not like I said anything to you. I wanted to give you a heads up, but I guess my ego was wounded pretty bad after what happened. I just didn’t really want to talk to you.” He shrugged again. “But hey, that Jeremy guy’s a dick, and if he bothers you, I’m around. Okay?” 

“Yeah,” she nodded, “thank you, Teddy.” 

“No problem. I’d do anything for you.” She looked up at him, offered him a weak half-smile. “So, can I take you up to your room? Ya’know, make sure you don’t bump into that guy again?” 

She glanced down at her suitcase, at his fingers twitching toward it, waiting for her approval to grab it. Her eyes drew back over toward the elevator. “Uhm…” 

—

He drummed his fingers on the top of the steering wheel. He always used to hate driving through the city, but he found himself missing the bustle of it all as he drove down the empty route in front of him. Mile after mile after mile of empty road. He sighed to himself. It seemed like every song he turned on had him on edge until he eventually jammed his finger on the button, cutting off the noise and leaving himself with nothing but the sound of the tires on the road and the thoughts echoing through his head. A quick check to his GPS revealed that he had gone no more than four miles since the last time he’d checked. He had started feeling antsy two hours ago, and the feeling only escalated with each city limit sign that he passed. 

God, this drive was long. This was weird, wasn’t it? He shouldn’t have done this. He should have stayed home or texted her first or something. This was borderline stalking. He shook his head at himself. Definitely wasn’t actual stalking, he knew the law—not for, like, any weird reasons or anything… just because, ya’know, he’s a cop. Cops know the law. _Obviously._ He had never stalked anybody, if that hadn’t been clear. And look, it’s not like he was going there to watch her or anything, he was simply coming by to drop something off to her. But why didn’t he just text her first? 

She told him where she’d be, of course. They’re partners, so the information _(I was asked to do a speech at a conference for detectives on the path to leadership positions)_ , which was accompanied by one of her way-too-cute happy dances, was given to him a few days in advance. 

She stayed at his place the night before, and when she frantically woke him up _an entire hour late_ and they had to rush to get ready and figure out some sort of excuse as to why they were both late on the same day and _why don’t you own a real alarm clock?_ and _Jake, you just wait and take the next subway so they don’t catch on to anything and, ugh, I’ve never been late before in my life, they’re definitely going to know we were up to something and why did you keep me up so late last night?_ When he replied with a soft _I didn’t hear you complaining last night,_ she managed to both punch the _hell_ out of his arm—he actually had a bruise—and also forget both her glasses and her contact case on ~~her bedside table~~ ~~the bedside table on her side of his bed~~ his bedside table. 

So it’s not like he could just let her stay at this hotel for two days without her glasses or her contact case during a _super important conference._ What kind of partner would he be if he knowingly let her do that? What would she do when her contacts dried out? He’d put her glasses on (his face, _not_ his penis, although he still thought that would be pretty funny) before, so he knew that she was practically blind. How could she give her speech to all those people, people who would one day be her colleagues instead of her higher-ups, if she couldn’t see her notes (or even _the audience_ , for that matter). And how would she drive home?

He still should have called or something. But it was too late, he was only about twenty minutes away from the hotel. It was going to be super casual. _Hey, I was on my way somewhere else and just happened to be in the area._ Over three hours away? Yeah, that’s believable. _I just happened to have your glasses and your contact case, which you forgot at my apartment, in the car with me, so I figured I’d drop them off. Oh, also, I stopped at the drugstore and grabbed some contact solution (the particular brand you use, because I tucked your brand of contact solution into my memory in case I ever needed to know it and weirdly—I did) in case you didn’t have any with you._

He was fucked. This was _not_ normal friends with benefits behavior. Was he some kind of idiot? Sure, he’d mostly accepted that he had some sort of growing feelings for her, but he sure as hell hadn’t shared that realization with her. And he didn’t plan to! He was having a hard enough time keeping his cool around her since he’d finally accepted that he was in over his head with her, that the feelings he’d been having weren’t just passing thoughts. If anything, adding telling her into the mix would just make things more complicated and confusing. 

He really couldn’t ignore it as he approached his final exit for Albany. It wasn’t until he noticed a dull pain that he realized he’d been mindlessly tapping his fingers on the steering wheel a bit too hard. He took a deep breath, letting it out on a heavy sigh. He dragged his fingers through his hair, ruffling his curls a bit, then glanced in the mirror at his reflection. 

“What’s your problem, man?” He rolled his eyes as they flicked back to the empty road in front of him. He wasn’t about to sit in the car and talk to his reflection, but _c’mon_. He wouldn’t _have to_ if he could just hold it together like a sensible person. It was like he was cool all the time, but when he was around her, he turned into some kind of crazy weirdo and she _had to be_ catching on to that. She hadn’t been acting like she noticed. Maybe he wasn’t actually acting that strange around her, but he _felt_ weird around her. All his thoughts were loud and competitive, trying to force their way into the forefront of his mind, battling for first place in the race to his mouth. He was learning to master the ability to stop himself from putting his foot in his mouth—barring last night when he accidentally almost called her cute and (very brilliantly, he thought) saved himself by saying: God, you’re c— _onfusing!_

He brought up some very misplaced thing that happened at work and she gave him a confused look, but she accepted that he was just being his usual brand of weird and continued tracing her fingers along his chest as she defended herself against whatever remark he made about the way she handled paperwork. 

As he exited the freeway, he accepted that he was going to have to call her. He couldn’t just show up there and—what, just ask the front desk where her room was and show up unannounced three hours from home? He’d call. 

But he didn’t really want to call. He shouldn’t have even done this, shouldn’t be in the car on the way to see her—no, he didn’t come to see her. He came to drop off her glasses. He could go a few days without seeing her. No big deal. 

He should just turn around. 

But then she wouldn’t have her glasses. 

He debated all of this until the hotel sign caught his attention. He held his breath while he searched for a parking spot, and it wasn’t until he had the car shut off that he finally pulled her name up on his phone. 

Just be cool, Peralta. 

“Jake?” 

“Uh, yeah. Hey, Ames! What’s up?” 

Her voice sounded weird, like her mind was somewhere else. “Uh… conference. At the conference.” 

“Right. Actually, I was calling about that. You forgot your glasses at my house.”

She paused for a long moment. “I did?” He could hear shuffling, assumed she was looking through her bag. “Fuck.” 

“And your contact case, actually.” 

“Fuck. _Fuck._ There was so much going on this morning, I completely forgot I set them back down.” He could picture her running her fingers through her hair, squeezing her eyes shut while she tried to figure out what she was going to do. 

He cleared his throat. “Yeah. I… uh, I hope this isn’t weird. But I’m actually at the hotel if you wanted to come down and grab them?”

The silence that followed was really too long to be considered a pause. “You’re? At my hotel?” 

He laughed uncomfortably. “Yeah. I just… I don’t know, I knew you were going to need them, and, ya’know, it’s no big deal, I was gonna be passing through the area anyway…” 

“You were going to be passing through Albany? On a random Friday night after work?” 

He could hear the disbelief in her voice. Just _be cool._ “Yeah. My, uh… cousin lives out in Ostego.” Not a lie. “I thought I’d go out and visit with him, haven’t seen him in a while.” Not so much a lie as an embellishment. He _had_ thought that he’d go out and visit his cousin in Ostego. He just… only thought of it right this very second when he needed an excuse. 

“You can just come up, if you want.” 

He definitely wasn’t imagining things. Her voice sounded weird. Different. “Oh. Yeah, sure, sounds good. What’s your room number?” 

“405C.” 

“Noice. See you in a minute.” 

He tried to shake the feeling that something was wrong as he walked into the building. He glanced around as he walked in. There were a lot of people, some faces he vaguely recognized and some he did not. He made direct eye contact with a man that he _swore_ he knew, but he couldn’t place exactly who he was. He shrugged it off as he made his way to the elevator. Probably just someone he recognized from one of the many NYPD gatherings. 

He was already trying to cut the tension he was sure to walk into before she even opened the door. He knocked, and he didn’t look up at her as he slipped into the door as it opened. 

“You know, I didn’t think I’d—” He raised his eyebrows as he turned and looked at her, his voice getting caught in his throat. “Heeeeeyyyy, Amy… Everything okay?” 

She tilted her head to the side like she wasn’t sure what he was talking about. Her voice was an octave too high for her to be telling the truth. “Yeah?”

He regarded her quietly, unsure of exactly what was going on. Her hair was in tangled braids all around her head, and even as she avoided his eyes, she still chewed on her bottom lip. He nodded slowly, then made his way over to her bedside table to set down her glasses and contact items.

“You know, you didn’t have to come all this way to bring those here.” 

He nodded, the corner of his lip turning up into a gentle smile. “I was gonna be in the area already, anyways.” 

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Right.” 

“Hey… Are you sure nothing’s wrong? You look—” He trailed off, his eyes flickering over her again. “Stressed?” 

She looked down at the floor, and he was sure that he heard her voice waver. “I’m fine, Jake. I really don’t wanna keep you, you’ve got plans and everything.”

“Hey. This is more important. What’s going on?” 

“Jake.” She finally looked up at his face. She shook her head at him. “You really don’t have to.”

He shifted his weight, but he made no motion to move toward the door. He was waiting for her to speak again. 

“I just have a lot on my mind. It’s fine. Really.” 

He nodded slowly. “Okay. Well… Is it cool with you if I hang around a little bit to… I don’t know, help? Talk it out or keep your mind off of it or… whatever?” 

“What about your cousin?” 

Jake shrugged. “I don’t think he really wanted me to come over anyway.” That was probably true, but he couldn’t know for sure because he’d never asked him. 

She took a deep breath, and he watched as she walked over and sat on the edge of the bed. “Yeah. You can stay.” 

“Great.” He slipped off his shoes, pushing them off to the side before he practically jumped into the bed next to her. “So this is what we’re going to do then.” 

Because it was easy to move into action when she was going through something. He didn’t have time to think through every little action that he made, didn’t have time to stress over the way he looked at her or whether or not she was returning that look, whether he was being too touchy or too intimate or too sweet or _whatever_. 

She gave him a sort of strange look as he sat cross-legged next to her, pulling her so that she leaned partially on him. He pulled the first braid closer so that he could inspect it, then began gently untangling the hair. “You wanna talk about it, or do you want me to talk about something else?” 

She blinked up at him, and the only way he could really describe her look was dumbfounded. The look quickly faded, and she leaned against him and looked forward. “You can talk.” 

So he did. About everything and nothing. About their friends, about enemies of the nine-nine, about a weird car he’d seen on the way to the hotel. He talked about a dream he’d had a few days earlier, he talked about his most sought after cases. He talked about the best macaroni and cheese he’d ever had, at some closed-down restaurant his Nana used to take him to. He talked about the times that he had come close to catching the guy, but had made a mistake and let them get away. She chimed in here and there, talking about similarities in cases she’d had, offering her own quick theories and questions about _well, did you talk to the landlord?_

She laughed at his jokes and his stories and he resisted the urge to kiss her when she did. She smiled up at him when his voice got soft, when he was lost in his thoughts and memories, much simpler times where he didn’t feel even a fraction as alive as he felt sitting here with her. He continued playing with her hair even once all the braids were removed, and she shifted so that she pushed him back against the pillows and could more easily stretch out. 

She seemed careful when she shared details about herself. She’d wait a long time after he said something before she hesitantly added something to the conversation. It seemed like she never had trouble talking to him before, but she seemed to struggle with it more each time they were together. She mentioned that she ran into someone from the academy, but she quickly changed the subject, another person she ran into.

“You ran into Teddy?” He adjusted so he could look at her against his chest. By now his flannel was unbuttoned all the way—a response to _your buttons keep poking me_ —and her fingers wrapped around the edge of his shirt the way she always tended to rest with him. “How’d that go?” 

She shrugged. “I mean, it wasn’t that bad. He tried to help me with my suitcase, but he backed off when I told him I had it.” 

“He tried to help you with your suitcase? Man, what a jerk.” He laughed when she glared up at him. “But seriously. I’m glad it went okay.” 

“Yeah, I didn’t expect him to be here.” She paused for a second. “He isn’t the reason the precinct closed, I guess.” 

Jake trailed his fingers up her back. “No?” 

“No. Something about my old captain and expenditures not adding up.” 

“Oh. Well that’s good, isn’t it?”

He waited a long time, but he got the idea that she didn’t want to talk about it anymore. 

“How are you feeling?” 

She shrugged her shoulders. “A little better, I guess. Thank you.” 

“I don’t know…” He raised his eyebrows at her. “You seem a little tense, still.” 

“I’ll be okay.” 

“Have you showered here, yet?” 

She rolled off of him, propping herself up on her elbow to stare at him. “What part of my appearance when you got here made you think that I had showered since I last saw you at work this afternoon?” 

He laughed. “C’mon. I’ll go get the shower ready while you get your stuff together. Hot showers always make you feel better. You told me that. And hotel showers are always nice.” 

So she sat there as he walked off to the bedroom, trying to remember when she even mentioned that hot showers always make her feel better. Don’t hot showers make everyone feel better? That wasn’t really something that should make her heart skip. He could have not even actually remembered it, it could have just been an assumption because like she said, _everyone_ feels better after a hot shower. 

And she was sure this was it. This was the moment she had expected. When he asked if she minded if he stayed, to help ‘keep her mind off it, or whatever,’ she definitely thought he meant sex. When he climbed on the bed with her and his fingers found her hair but his lips didn’t find her neck, she was surprised. Not unpleasantly so, but surprised all the same. 

He was kind and thoughtful. He came here to bring her her glasses, and she couldn’t be positive, but she was pretty sure that he had never actually been going to his cousin’s house. She thought he went out of his way to come here, just for her. He didn’t laugh at her when he walked in and found her with a crown of messy, chaotic braids. His eyes fell upon her, full of concern, and she shied away from the attention that he adorned her with. He talked to her, about anything in the world to distract her from what was on her mind, and he didn’t push her to share what her problem was even once. 

But this was it. _This_ was where the sex came in. She was going to get her stuff ready, and when she walked into the bathroom, he’d probably already be in the shower. She heard the water start as she flipped through the drawers, pulling out an outfit to change into after her shower. She was surprised that she’d even taken the time to unpack during the spiral she’d stepped into when she walked into the room. 

Teddy had asked her if it was okay for him to bring her up to her room. She ultimately thanked him for the offer, but she figured it would be easier to shrug him off in the lobby than it would be in front of her hotel room. She held it together in the elevator, but by the time she made it into her room, she was in utter disarray. 

What was she _doing_ here? She shouldn’t have even come. She didn’t belong here. She felt like she was twenty-three again because she was the same person as she was when she was twenty-three. She was underprepared, unsure of herself. She wasn’t ready for this. She knew nothing about being a sergeant, knew nothing about leadership. Her precinct closed, why would they even ask her to come? Did they even ask her to come? Maybe Jeremy planned this all out, maybe he somehow conned someone into inviting her so he could humiliate her again, the same way that he did over ten years earlier. 

She somehow managed to finish unpacking before she caught her reflection in the vanity over the dresser. That’s when the stress braiding began. She looked into her eyes and saw the same woman who made all those silly mistakes, the same woman who felt so confident and sure in herself that she let it cloud her judgement, the same woman who was so publicly wrong that the humiliating memory haunted her dreams for weeks. She had taken many precautions to avoid ever being that woman again. She had taken every step, attended every meeting, every seminar, every conference, made binder upon binder full of information and procedures and codes, held back in every relationship—professional or otherwise—and yet the woman looking back at her was just as naive as she had been that day. Coming here was proof that she was just as immature now as she was then. 

She had no business being here. What did she know about leadership? She didn’t hold a leadership position and _of course_ she strived to one day, but why would they ask someone like her to do the speech when someone like Jeremy Winkler was _right there?_ And now she had to give the speech, she agreed, she was _there_ and she knew that when she looked into the crowd, she’d lock eyes with him and history would repeat itself and _all of this was a mistake._

She was approximately a quarter of the way through singing the Great American Songbook when her phone started ringing. She was surprised that Jake was calling her, even more surprised to find that he was there. But she was glad. She glanced in the mirror at herself and was fully prepared for his teasing when he walked in. But it never came. 

She was already pulling her bra off as she stepped into the bathroom, steam already coating the mirror. Jake was standing next to the shower, seemingly checking the temperature of the water. Fully clothed. He smiled at her. 

“Come over here, let me show you how the handle works. It took me a minute to figure it out. Although honestly, you’re smarter than me, you’d probably get it immediately.” 

She smiled back at him as she walked over, and she noticed that he didn’t sound any sort of condescending as he demonstrated the way that the handle worked. He stated it matter-of-factly, and it _was_ a weird handle, she was glad that he took the time to figure it out so she didn’t have to. 

“The shampoo is strawberry. It’s not as good as the kind you usually use, but I think you’ll like it.” 

Then he was walking toward the bathroom door. 

“Jake?” He turned back to look at her, leaning on the door frame. 

“Yeah?” 

“Aren’t you gonna shower with me?” 

He smiled, his lips pressed tight together. “You need to relax, Ames. If I get in there with you, you’re _not_ gonna be relaxing.” She raised her eyebrows at that prospect, and he laughed softly at her. “Plus I just showered before I left my apartment.” She should’ve known, the mess of curls at the top of his head had that soft, fluffy look to it that she recognized from many a shower with him. “You good?” 

She nodded. “Yeah, thank you.” 

And he just… walked out. And left her in the bathroom. To shower. By herself. 

And she did relax. She relaxed into the stream of hot water with just the right amount of water pressure. She relaxed into the strawberry scent of the shampoo in too tiny bottles. She relaxed as she dried off in big, fluffy, white towels, relaxed into the simple tanktop and shorts she brought with her to change into. 

Her mind did _not_ relax. Her mind was bouncing around questions and potential answers faster than she could even process them. _Why is he being so kind? Was Kylie right? Does he like her?_

She cleared the mirror to look at herself as she brushed and blow dried her hair, ultimately deciding that, though she felt a bit like a twenty-three year old today, she wasn’t going to fall into a habit of obsessing over whether or not a boy liked her or not. It didn’t matter if he liked her like _that_. They were friends, and he was just being a good friend. That’s all it was. 

When she stepped back into the room, Jake was looking at her guiltily. His hands were folded behind his back, a room service cart partially hidden behind him. 

She shook her head at him. “What did you do?”

“I definitely didn’t order too much food, if that’s what you’re asking.” He looked behind his shoulder at the cart. “Or too much alcohol. Ya’know, in case you needed anything else to help you relax.”

She raised her eyebrows and stepped around him to look at what he’d ordered: too much food. 

“I couldn’t decide!” He was defending himself before she even had an opportunity to say anything, just the look in her eyes enough for him to know how ridiculous that much food was. 

Ridiculous amount of food aside, she had lost her appetite somewhere between leaving work and lacing seventeen braids in her hair, so she hadn’t eaten since her rushed slices of toast when she arrived to work almost forty-five minutes late (an hour and fifteen minutes if you relied on the fact that she typically showed up half an hour early). She didn’t say anything, simply picking at french fries and watching as his shoulders relaxed at her acceptance of the food. 

“Too much alcohol?” She asked after she finished a few fries. 

He smiled at her, then walked over to the desk in the corner of the room. He picked up one of the two bottles of wine that were sitting on top of it. “Just wine. Figured liquor would be a bit much, considering you have that speech tomorrow afternoon.” 

She must have paled at the mention of the speech, because he raised his eyebrows at her. “You okay?” He looked down at the bottle. “You don’t like this kind of wine?” 

“No, no,” she shook her head. “It’s not that. It’s… uh, it’s the speech.” 

After a minor struggle in opening the wine and only a little bit of arguing, he convinced her that they could eat on the bed as long as they remained at the foot of the bed. He spread out the tablecloth that had been on the cart and they took up residence on top of it, crossed legs with plates interspersed between them. He passed her a bottle of wine, and she took a long drink. She took a deep breath when she finished, then punctuated the breath with another sip. His eyebrows stayed raised as she handed the bottle back to him. 

“So… _Basically…_ There’s just been a lot on my mind, I guess. I ran into this guy earlier.” She shook her head and picked at the bun on a slider, not realizing when she slipped into her thoughts and quieted down. 

“Hey.” His voice was gentle. He grabbed her hand, gave it a soft squeeze before moving his hands back to find the perfect nacho, his eyes somehow staying glued to her. It was the perfect gesture, a show of solidarity, an openness to her, yet not overbearing. 

She nodded, rubbed her hands over her bare knees. “His name is Jeremy Winkler. We were in the academy together. We have a, uhm…” Her voice quivered a bit as she continued. “A complicated history, I guess?” 

When she trailed off again, Jake stayed quiet. A few minutes passed between them where neither of them said anything. She noticed that Jake had stopped picking at the food. She looked up at him to find his brow furrowed.

“Amy, did he…?” He blinked at her, and she noticed that he was angling just slightly more toward her. “Did he hurt you?” 

“What? Oh, god, no. No, I’m sorry.” He sighed, the relief clearly flashing across his face. He still didn’t touch the food, instead keeping his attention on her. “He didn’t hurt me. We, uh… We were really good friends, and then, I don’t know, things got… competitive, I guess? You know how competitive I am.”

He nodded. “Extremely.” 

She nodded back. “Yeah. So it was like how we have competitions at work, ya’know? Except it was the academy, and we were both new, and we were both trying to prove ourselves, and Jeremy…” She shrugged her shoulders. “He never knew when to stop. And I let it go too far on more than one occasion, and I never stood up for myself because I kind of thought it was all in good-natured competition, like we were pushing each other to do our best…” 

She paused to eat a little bit more, and Jake followed her lead. She pulled the bottle of wine out from where it was resting between his thighs and took a big sip before gently replacing it. After they’d eaten a bit, Amy fell back against the bed. Jake cleared the plates from the bed, placing them back on the room service cart. He finished off the last of the first bottle of wine, then opened the second bottle before making his way back over to the bed. 

Amy pulled her fingers out of where they were locked into her hair, then turned and smiled at him as he laid down next to her. Her smile turned wistful, reminiscent of a time he’d never be able to see. “Basically it all led to the ceremony at the end. We were both at the top of our class, and god, he would have done anything to secure his spot above me. Not would have, I guess. He did.”

Jake passed her the bottle, and she propped herself up on her elbows so she could take a drink. She handed the bottle back to him, then fell into the mattress with a soft _thud_. She stared up at the ceiling. He couldn’t tear his eyes away from her if he tried. He didn’t try. 

“Without getting _too_ far into it, about halfway through the academy, he’d stolen a bunch of my notes. He altered them, I guess. Looking back, I knew something weird had happened, but I just thought I was crazy. We were studying together one day and it just seemed like I was getting every code wrong, but when I’d ask him about it, he’d show me his notes and our notes all had the same numbers. Turns out he’d switched all of mine, so I’d been studying the wrong codes for the whole final half.” 

“So for the exam?” 

Amy scoffed. “Yeah, I wish that was the worst part of it. We were both neck and neck, tied for top scores on all of the exams we’d taken. He’d made a huge deal to the lieutenant about who was the top in the class, and he _couldn’t take it_ when he always said ‘Amy and you.’” She shook her head. “He got mad because he wouldn’t say, ‘you and Amy.’ Even asked about it once, and the lieutenant said something about how my name came first alphabetically, so technically I was first.”

“So naturally, nobody was really surprised when he suggested that we add something to the ceremony to make it a little more interesting. A final test, a way to see who the better officer really was. We’d have an oral exam, almost like a game show. A face-off, answering questions Jeopardy style, whoever hits the buzzer first kind of way. And you know, I knew I could hold my own, so I agreed.” 

“But he switched out your codes.” 

Amy nodded, lips pressed together tight. “He switched my codes. So I got up in front of everyone, all of our families, superior officers, our colleagues, and got every single question wrong. But then, not only did I get every question wrong, I made a fool of myself because I was _so sure_ that I had them right.” She breathed a frustrated sigh. “I _knew_ the codes, I had been studying them. So it was kind of like adding insult to the injury when I had an anxiety attack in the middle of my closing speech, which Jeremy, by the way, thought was hilarious.”

“Oh my god, Amy. What a dick.” 

She scoffed. “I know. And I failed the final exam, of course. I had been studying the wrong material the whole time, so…”

He rolled onto his side so he could see her better. “Did you have to completely redo the academy?” 

“Luckily, no. I came and spoke to the instructors after I received my failing grade because I just couldn’t believe it. You know, I spent so much time studying and making sure that I knew the material front and back. When I showed them all my notes, we found the few pages that were completely wrong, and after a little bit of inspection, I figured out that they definitely weren’t my original papers. We figured out what had happened, but there was nothing that could be done to reprimand him. It’s not like what he did was illegal. There was no way to go back and convince the entire building full of people that I wasn’t an idiot. I’ve come across more than one professional that was in the room that day, and they’re always dumbfounded by the fact that I’m a capable detective. But they let me retake the exam after we figured it out.” 

“Is this guy a sociopath?” 

Amy clapped her hands together. “Thank you!” 

He shook his head. “So you saw him and it just reminded you of all that?” 

She shifted a little bit, not really responding. 

“That’s all it is, right? Just bad memories, not, like…”

She covered her eyes with her hands, groaning quietly. “It sounds so stupid when I say it out loud, Jake. But what if he’s the reason I’m here? He came straight to me when he saw me, like he was _waiting for me._ He said he knew I was going to be giving a speech, that’s the only reason why he even came. Like… Why would they ask _me?”_

Jake made a face at her, but she couldn’t quite identify it. She was talking again before he had a chance to.

“Like, I’m not a leader. This is a leadership conference. And yeah, I _want to_ be a leader, but I’m not one yet. Stupid Jeremy is a sergeant already. What if Jeremy convinced them to ask me to do this? And I’m just going to go up there and make myself look stupid? Like everything I’ve worked for up to this point would be for nothing.” She groaned again. “Or, another alternative, maybe even a worse alternative… They only asked me because I’m a woman. I’m like the token woman, the token _Latina_ woman, and they’re going to parade me around and have me give speeches and _inspire other women_ like the NYPD is really out here trying their hardest to make this work environment female friendly. Spoiler alert: they’re not.” 

Jake listened quietly as she continued, cutting off here and there like she was saying too much. Finally, there was a break in the conversation. “They only asked me because I’m a woman. Not because I’m the best person to do it.”

He played with a stray strand of her hair. He was quiet for a moment. She didn’t want to look up at him, but after a lengthy silence, she finally broke and glanced up at his face. He was looking at her with that gentle smile that he’d been wearing all night. 

“Ames…” He shook his head, his smile getting just a little more pronounced. She watched him quietly. “You _are_ the best person to do this. You’re so smart, and you’re the most prepared detective I know, and I guarantee you that if I pulled out the sergeant’s exam right now, you’d get at least eighty-five percent of the questions right—”

 _“Eighty five percent?”_ She made a face at him. “Jake, that’s terrible.” 

He laughed and shook his head at her. “You care about this so much. And we have no way of knowing for sure, maybe they did choose you over Jeremy _Winkler_ —such a stupid name, by the way—because you’re a woman. But if that’s the only reason they chose you, it’ll be the best accident of their lives because they could not have picked a better speaker. You have the experience, you have the ambition, and you have the knowledge to back it all up. You’re ready for this, Ames.”

“I don’t feel ready.” 

He reached over and squeezed just above her knee, left his hand there—a small gesture. He was there for her. Then, super abruptly, he turned to her. “Terry died.” He stopped talking and began laughing when her face screwed up in response. 

“Terry died?” 

“No, no.” He laid back on the bed, still laughing. She laid back next to him, waiting for him to continue. _“Hypothetically_ , Terry died. That same day, there’s a murder in Prospect Park. You have everyone on the squad, plus everyone on the third floor at your disposal. What do you do?” 

“I mean, I would follow the orders of Captain—”

“No. What would _you_ do?” 

She sighed, then turned her head to look at him. “I would secure the scene first. Actually, I’d have Daniels and Leibowitz secure the scene, get any civilians out of there. I’d have Charles start interviewing witnesses. You and Rosa would be investigating the scene—”

“Who would be primary?” 

“I’d need more information about the case to decide, but both of you are equally capable.”

Jake mumbled. “You could have just said me, but okay.”

She scrunched her eyebrows. “I’m not compromising my integrity for you, Jake.” 

“I mean, it’s hypothetical… But what else?” 

“Monitor and field the media, run the scanner, keep an open line of communication with all of you to address any problems as they come up.”

“Exactly. Sergeant Santiago.” 

She shook her head at him, but her smile was growing by the second. “That’s ridiculous.” 

He rolled onto his stomach, resting his chin in his palms. “We could go through these scenarios all night, Ames. I bet you’d get it right every time.” 

She protested, so he came up with another scenario. Then another, then another, and finally by the fifth one, she was content. She smiled genuinely as she passed the bottle back to him. 

“Thanks, Jake.” 

He nodded, smiling down as he picked at the label on the bottle. “If I’m gonna leave tonight, I need to stop drinking.” 

Her eyebrows drew together. “You’re gonna leave?”

He looked up at her. “I didn’t wanna intrude.” 

He was offering her an out. She grinned at him. “Take a drink, Jake.” 

His lips tugged up at the corner, but he was still looking at the bottle instead of at her. His eyes met hers tentatively. “Yeah?” 

She pulled the bottle back out of his hands. “Too late, my turn.” 

He let his jaw drop, mock offense written all over his face. She quirked an eyebrow at him as she took a sip, her eyes never leaving his. He kept his eyes on her when she handed the bottle back, watched as her smile grew as he took a long drink. 

“I have one of my undercover bags in my car, I’ll run out and grab it.” 

By now they had stretched up toward the pillows. He leaned across her to set the bottle down on her bedside table, then he pushed himself up off of the bed, his legs swinging over her. She adjusted against the pillows as she watched him shuffle around his jacket, searching for the pocket containing his keys. 

“Come back,” she said softly. 

He turned to look at her, a faint smile on his lips. He set his jacket down and made his way back over to her. He leaned his elbows on the bed, propping himself up so they were face-to-face. “What’s up?”

“Not now.” She shook her head, but she didn’t make an attempt to move away from him. “I mean… Just don’t leave. Come back.” 

His eyebrows drew together as he looked at her, his expression turning almost sad. “How many drinks have you had? Don’t think I’ve met this particular Amy.” 

“Jake—”

“I’m coming back.” He nodded at her, and when she looked down at her lap, he tipped her chin back up. “Hey.” She reluctantly looked at him. “I am.” 

She nodded, and he smiled at her before he stood back up to walk to the door. He had just opened the door when he heard her voice again. “Jake?” 

He turned to face her. “Yeah?” 

She stretched her arm out toward him, all of her fingers balling her hand into a fist except her pinky, outstretched and curved toward him. A promise. 

His smile could only be described as affectionate as he mirrored her gesture. She grinned at him, a genuine smile, and whatever was going on in her head in the moment, he was sure that he knew that he meant it. 

He left her in the room, a quick run out to the car. The elevator stopped on the second floor. A man a few inches taller than him stepped in, a cordial smile on his face. Jake nodded at him, a paper name tag stuck to his shirt just catching his attention before he looked away. He glanced back at the man when the name tag registered in his brain. 

The man raised an eyebrow at him. Jake regarded him, his blonde hair combed to the side and gelled into place. “Hi. Sorry, do we know each other?” 

Jake felt his face react before he could convince it not to. His eyes flicked back down to the name tag. “No.” He read the name tag again. _Jeremy Winkler._ The elevator dinged as the door began to open. “You have a stupid name, though.” 

And he walked out of the elevator, leaving the man dumbfounded behind him. 

He wasn’t going to say anything of substance to him, definitely wasn’t going to let him know that he knew Amy (he could just imagine how that would go over when he found out, and she’d be right to be mad. It wasn’t really his place, but still—fuck that guy.), but it made him feel a little better to say _something_.

He had a smile on his face when he traipsed back off of the elevator, but the smile quickly faded when he saw a man standing in front of Amy’s door, her face looking concerned and unamused from what he could see. She glanced at Jake behind the man, and he turned to follow her gaze. It was the man he’d seen when he walked into the lobby, a man who, in this context, he immediately recognized. Teddy Wells. 

“Hi!” Jake sounded overenthusiastic, especially considering that he wasn’t happy to see Teddy at all. His feelings aside (it had _nothing_ to do with his feelings. _Nothing._ ), Amy had just finally gotten relaxed, and now he’s standing at her door. He might as well have been retangling the strands of her hair that Jake had spent almost an hour raking his fingers through. 

Teddy took a step back. “Hi.” 

“Jake,” Amy said softly. She stepped back, making room for him to come into the room. He stepped past her, looming just behind her and watching Teddy with cautious eyes. 

“Oh.” Teddy nodded. “Right. Sorry, I didn’t know you had a boyfriend. My bad.” 

He could physically feel her tense in front of him at Teddy’s misdiagnosis of their relationship. She nodded one quick nod at him. 

“Have a good night, guys. Sorry for bothering you.” 

Amy shut the door, pressing her palm against the door and clearly taking a breath before turning back to look at him. Jake licked his lips, trying his hardest to bite away the smirk pulling across his lips. “Awh, I didn’t know I was your boyfriend, Ames. When did you ask me?” 

“Shut up,” she grumbled as she shoved past him. 

He tsked. “That is no way to talk to your boyfriend, Santiago.” 

She groaned, flopping back onto the bed. He laughed as he unzipped his bag, began shuffling through it in search of something to change into. “What’d he want, anyway?” 

“To profess his love for me.” 

She glared up at him when he barely stifled a laugh. “I’m sorry.” 

Internally, he was just as annoyed as she looked. But who was he? It wasn’t even about him. He was annoyed for her, annoyed that she had to keep fielding advances from someone she had turned down on more than one occasion, annoyed that she had to be annoyed and stressed over something that he knew she’d dealt with more than once over the past few months. But it didn’t matter. He was just here for sex. He wasn’t here to get involved in her personal life. A laugh was his safest move.

“I swear to god, I smile in his direction, and…” She sighed. “He went and asked the front desk for my room number. He flashed a badge to them, and they just gave it to him.”

“One of the two-hundred cops here should probably make the staff aware that they shouldn’t just hand out room numbers to anyone with a badge. Could’ve been fake.” 

“I figured it was just because they knew all the cops were here for the conference.” 

Jake shrugged. Her fingers got to work on rubbing at her temples again, and he sighed defeatedly. “Don’t let him get you stressed out, Ames. He’s gone.” 

She nodded. “I know. But he’ll be back. And even if he’s not, ya’know… It’s just everything right now.” She stopped rubbing her temples, letting her fingers tangle into her hair. “It’s just a stressful couple of days. And I was so excited for this until I saw him.” 

He scrunched his eyebrows up as he tried to think of something to say to make it better. He frowned when it occurred to him that maybe he just _couldn’t_ make it better. A quiet sigh slipped from his lips. 

He went back to his bag, pulling out a plaid pair of pajama pants and a t-shirt. “Alright, so here’s what we’re gonna do. I’m going to go change, and then when I get back, you’re going to roll over onto your stomach and let me rub your back.” 

She laughed. “Let you rub my back? Like a massage?” 

He hummed a confirmation. “Yup. I’m going to rub your back, and you can finish off the wine if you want, or you don’t have to, ya’know, whatever you want. But I’m gonna help you relax, and you’re going to kick _ass_ tomorrow, and Jeremy Wiener is going to see exactly how wrong he is about you.” 

She laughed again at his childish name calling, but he could see that her smile didn’t touch her eyes. She stood up and walked over to the bedside table on the other side, toying with the wine bottle she found there. 

“Okay?” 

She nodded, but she didn’t look up at him. “Yeah. Okay, Jake.” 

He scrunched his eyebrows up as he looked at her. She was clearly really bothered by all of this, and there was a suspicion nagging at him that a massage was _not_ going to make her feel better. He tossed his duffel back into the bathroom, then made his way over to her. 

He touched the back of her arm lightly. “Hey, what’s wrong?” 

She shrugged. “Drunk Amy is so much fun.” She was quoting him and he _knew it_ , he just couldn’t place the exact time he’d said it. “Figured you like me better this way, I should probably finish off the bottle.” 

He was back to wondering how much she’d had to drink. Five drinks? Six? Too much? Had he done something to make her truly think that he liked her more when she was drunk? Was it just that she had a lot going on at the moment, wasn’t feeling like herself? 

“Hey, Ames…” 

“You like me best when I’m drunk.” She shrugged nonchalantly, twisting the bottle so that it made a sound against the table. He couldn’t see her face, but he could hear the edge in her voice. She would never admit that it hurt her, but he wasn’t stupid. What _was_ stupid was the fact that she truly believed that. 

His hands found their familiar place on her hips, pulled her against him. She didn’t say anything, didn’t make any movements. His fingers traced her hips absentmindedly underneath her shirt. 

“I like you best whatever way you are.” He chose his words carefully, spoke them softly. 

She set the bottle down, a soft _clink_. Her fingers wrapped lightly around his wrist. He shouldn’t say things like this, but the alcohol had him feeling staticky, words tumbling out of him with no regard to reason, no regard for the filter that was usually placed carefully between his brain and his big mouth.

“When you’re drunk, you’re my favorite you. When you’re sober, you’re my favorite you. When we’re working a case and you’re frustrated and it’s 2am and we’re trapped in the car waiting for something that’s never going to happen, and you’re tired of me singing songs to you and you roll your eyes at all my jokes, you’re my favorite you. When you’re laughing and smiling, trying your hardest to beat me at some stupid contest we made up, you’re my favorite you.” 

He leaned his head against the back of her neck, his voice getting quieter. “When you’re mad at me for doing something dumb or ignoring your lead or something on a case, you’re my favorite. When you scrunch up your nose and turn your head away from me while I’m driving, like it’s going to stop me from glancing at you even ten seconds, you’re my favorite. When you’re being smarter than me, and cooler than me, and just all around better than me… And even when you’re not…” 

He stood up straight and shook his head, though he knew she couldn’t see it from where she was. “You’re my favorite, Ames.” 

Though she moved slowly in turning to face him, everything felt like it happened so quickly. Her arms wound around his neck, the kiss she offered him soft and slow. This kiss was a blanket straight out of the dryer on a cold winter night. You snuggle in deep and everything just feels warm and fuzzy. It was walking into an ice cream shop you frequented as a child, your heart overflowing with nostalgia as you took in all of the familiarity. It was novelty, something different from anything else they’d shared—new and exciting and full of potential. It was warm and inviting, _she_ was warm and inviting, and he liked her, _god_ , he liked her so much.

She kept her eyes closed as she leaned against him. He nudged his nose against hers. “Okay?” 

“Okay.” She nodded

So he went into the bathroom. He took a few minutes to brush his teeth, to look into the mirror at his reflection, shaking the slightly jarring experience and all of his words out of his head, his eyes silently trying to remind himself that they were _friends_ , and just because a little bit of wine had the edges of his mind feeling fuzzy, didn’t mean that anything had changed. Is this what being around her would be like forever? Him holding it all together until everything just tumbled out in a messy heap? Him trying to convince himself that they were just friends and that just friends was enough for him? 

It _was_ enough for him. 

He shook his head as he stepped back toward the bathroom door. None of this mattered. This was about her. She needed him. He stepped back through the door and tossed his duffel bag onto the floor outside the bathroom. “Alright, you ready—” He cut off at the end of his word, his breath exiting him in a little huff. 

He’d never been to one of those real massage places, but he saw them on TV and in movies. He wasn’t sure if she was mimicking the images he’d seen, or if that’s what it was actually like. She was laying flat on the bed, her arms folded underneath her head, her pillow discarded and placed neatly on top of what he presumed would be his pillow. The sheets were folded neatly at her waist, her skin contrasting nicely with the white fabric. As his eyes roved over the expanse of her back, he imagined that she was just as bare underneath the sheet, and that sent his mine places that he truly hadn’t planned on going. 

He cleared his throat, trying to make it seamless as he finished his earlier question. “You ready for the best back rub of your life?” 

She glanced over her shoulder at him, humming her approval, and he recognized the teasing look in her eye. He tried to shrug off the new fidgety feeling he had. He felt apprehensive, and he couldn’t place the exact stem of the feeling. He took a deep breath as he stood next to the bed, looking down at her for a moment. 

“You okay?” She asked, not turning quite enough that she could see him. 

“Mhm.” His voice may have been a little higher than he wanted. He overcorrected when he spoke again. “Just admiring the view. Never thought someone’s back could be pretty, I guess.” 

She laughed, wiggling her shoulders in a way that he was sure was a suggestion for him to hurry up. He climbed onto the bed, settling just below her hips. He shifted so that he wasn’t tipping her to the side where his knees dipped into the mattress. 

He talked about this like he had some kind of experience with it, but that had been very misleading. He’d never given anybody a massage in his life, and he was only a little bit sure that he could figure this out in a way that would actually be enjoyable to her. His hands hovered above her, unsure of where he should actually start. 

She started stirring underneath him again, and he figured it’d be better to do something and be wrong than it would be to just be awkwardly not touching her. So his hands gently found her sides, his thumbs sliding over the dimples in her lower back. She hummed immediately, and that gave him the little boost of confidence that he needed. 

He smoothed his hands over her skin until he reached her shoulders, then he kneaded the muscles there in a way that felt like it was probably right. She relaxed under his touch, and the soft little whimpers she made every few minutes seemed like they were definitely sounds of pleasure, not pain. He began the trek back down her back, pressing against either side of her spine with the pads of his thumbs. His curiosity got the best of him as he neared the sheet, allowing his thumbs to slip under it. He was right, there was nothing underneath. 

He swallowed that thought, his fingers gently skimming up her sides on his way back up to her neck. The sound she made when his fingers grazed the sides of her breasts was _obscene_ , and he scarcely avoided immediately repeating the motion to get her to do it again. Instead, he ran his fingers through her hair, gathering it all and moving it out of his way so that he could focus on her neck without distraction. He leaned forward a bit to get a better view of where his fingers would be working. 

He felt it when her hips started moving a bit, but he tried to ignore it. Her quiet sounds, breathy and contented, became a little more regular and a little less easy to ignore. Then she shifted underneath him. He groaned when she arched her back, finding the perfect angle to grind against him. He _wasn’t_ hard—not fully—but if she had anything to do with it, he would be very soon. 

Her moans and whimpers got softer, became more drawn out as his fingers slowed, his touches pressing deeper as she continued to push against him. After a few minutes, he’d lost his rhythm completely. One of his hands gently rubbed at her shoulder, the other gripping her hip to brace himself against her movements. 

“Ames…” His voice was weak. The sheet was slipping further off of her with each roll of her hips, and he practically growled when she pressed against his erection. She rutted against him a few more times, and when he adjusted to run his hands along her hips, the sheet was pulled all the way down her thighs. He made a low sound at the back of his throat. 

“Can I touch you?” 

In lieu of an answer, she pressed against him again, then turned enough that he got the idea that she wanted to move. He shifted, and she moved one of her legs to the other side of his thigh, opening herself up to him more. 

He adjusted, pressing his elbow into the mattress so his weight was leaning to her left. She whined when he kissed her neck, and they gasped together as his fingers found their way between her legs. He rubbed quick, soft circles, slowing each time he could tell she was getting a little too close. 

He laughed against her throat when she let out a frustrated groan. “You feeling relaxed?” 

“Why are you still wearing clothes?” She shot back. 

“Guess that’s a no. Should I try harder?” 

She twisted underneath him, and he adjusted so that she could roll onto her back. He continued his efforts, using the new position to slide a finger into her. She groaned softly, burying the sound against his lips as she kissed him. His attention was split between how soft her mouth felt against his and how her hips rhythmically rocked against his hand. 

Her lips parted, another soft moan as his tongue met hers. His tongue matched the pace of his fingers—slow, decisive, teasing. Her eyes fluttered open, her eyebrows pulling together just slightly. 

“Jake—” 

He dove back in, cutting her off with his insistent tongue. She matched his fervor, her hands tugging his shirt up. He helped her to pull it over his shoulders, his hands drawn back to her skin, soft and warm under his touch. He hadn’t realized how much he’d been craving her touch, but as soon as her fingernails skimmed across his chest, he realized how much he’d been missing it all day. 

He loved this. He loved building her up, loved it almost as much as he loved making her fall apart for him soon after. He loved the dull sting her fingernails would leave on his lower back when the fabric of his t-shirt rubbed against the marks just right. He loved her lips, a darker shade than usual, stained from his kisses. He loved her need, loved the desire he got to nurse within her, loved when she begged for more, begged for _him_ , harder, faster. 

He craved more. Every time he was with her, he wanted it more. _Slow down_ ; he wanted to slow down. He wanted to kiss her, leisurely, his hand cupping her face as he looked into her eyes. He wanted to feel her breath on his lips as she breathed a soft sound for him, only for him, as his hips drew closer to her. He wanted to take his time with every press of his lips, every flick of his tongue, every flex of his hips. 

He didn’t love her, but _god,_ he wanted to. 

He’d settle. Like he always did. When her fingers curled around his waistband and tugged his pants down, he’d settle. He’d bury his groan in her neck as she guided him into her, and he’d fuck her the way that he always did. Fast. Hard. His lips would find hers as he came apart to the sound of her whispered encouragements in his ear, burying the sound of her name as it left his lips. He’d give her everything she needed, leave her exhausted and satisfied, his own breathing settling as he basked in the thing that he loved even more than he loved this: her attention. 

She’d allow her fingers to trace along his collarbone, sometimes straying to follow the angle of his jaw. She especially seemed to like touching his face when he had the gentle prickle of stubble that he’d gone a day too long without shaving (he wasn’t doing that more often for that reason, he was just forgetful—honest). Her fingers might travel into his hair, twist around strands sleepily. If he was wearing a shirt, they might curl around his collar. When she was _really_ sleepy, she’d trace his features with her fingertips, and he’d fall asleep with his heart full, a weight against his chest that it was getting more and more difficult to sleep without. 

She’d kiss him. Slow as she came down from the high, her tongue tracing along his lips, her forehead leaning against his. Sometimes they’d talk—soft, whispery. Today it was, “So, you feeling relaxed now?” 

She stretched against him, rolling and backing into him. He didn’t mind being the big spoon this time. She had a big day coming up, could probably use the security of his arms wrapped around her while she slept. He loved being that for her. 

She yawned quietly, and he pressed a kiss against her temple. He pulled the blanket up over them, tightening his arm around her waist and pulling her just that much closer. 

“Goodnight, Ames.”

“Mmmm.” She pulled his hand up from her waist, laced her fingers with his, and moved their hands up near her face. 

He smiled to himself. If he moved his fingers, they stroked right against her cheek. She hummed when he did it. He’d never get used to how cute she was, but he didn’t mind spending his time trying. 

She twisted toward him slightly, enough that she could look into his eyes. She already looked so sleepy, her dark eyes inviting him in like a warm cup of coffee. The light from the lamp bounced around them like the half a spoonful of cream you’d have to put in to get her exact eye color—not that he’d ever thought about that.

Her voice was already drowsy, a soft yawn interrupting her before she could begin talking. She leaned her head against his chin. “Thank you, Jake.” 

He felt a swell of emotion, opting to press a gentle kiss against her hairline instead of saying something he might regret. He reached over and switched off the lamp, then wrapped her back into his arms. 

He probably shouldn’t get used to this… 

But god, it was so _easy._

—

Alright, take a deep breath, Santiago. 

She leaned back against the wall, peeking out behind the curtain for the fourth?—No, definitely fifth time. The fifth time. 

She inhaled deeply, held it for three seconds, released it slow and steady. Ugh. Reminder to tell Julian that triangle breathing does _not_ work and he should probably stop teaching his third graders to use it. 

She peeked behind the curtain again, trying to scan the crowd from her place on the edge of the stage, looking for the only face in the audience that might make her feel a little better. What she found _instead_ was Jeremy Winkler. That was enough to get her focused on another round of useless triangle breathing. 

It would be okay. She would be okay. Jake talked her through all of this _again_ in the morning. She really owed him one, though he insisted that she didn’t. He didn’t have to stay for the speech, probably had way more important things he could have been doing, but instead, he was sitting in one of the hard plastic chairs, listening to somebody she was sure he didn’t care about droning on about the new technology in body cams and how, after a trial period of both, their input in the upcoming survey would be the deciding factor on which brand of camera they went with across the entire NYPD. 

Jake didn’t get a camera to inspect now, didn’t get a demonstration, or a video clip, or anything but some old guy with a monotone voice, stopping approximately every eleven words to clear his throat. Even though she couldn’t find him among the sea of _way too many_ people, she could picture him. He was probably glaring up at the ceiling, rolling his eyes every time the man cleared his throat. She could picture him nudging her in the ribs and telling a joke that she didn’t even have the mental capacity to come up with at the moment. 

She was almost more annoyed when she realized that she was relaxing a little bit at the thought of Jake just acting normal less than twenty feet away from her. Hearing her name tore her out of her thoughts, and before she knew it she was being ushered through the curtains, walking out onto a nearly empty stage with too-bright lights shining right in her eyes. 

She walked up to the podium, all too aware that she was much more rigid than she should have been. She blinked through the lights, looking into the crowd and trying helplessly to locate Jake. Her eyes tried to make their way to the area where she knew Jeremy was sitting, but she resisted. She opened her mouth to speak, and the microphone squeaked, feedback from her being too far away. Her eyes immediately flashed to Jeremy, a wave of anxiety coursing through her when she recognized the familiar, condescending smirk on his face.

This is it. She’s twenty-three, a fresh face staring at a room full of people who don’t know her. She’s feeling inferior, recently embarrassed in front of all those people. Calm down, just calm down. _Calm down_ , Amy. 

It had been way too long, she still hadn’t spoken at all. She could see some of the expressions becoming more confused, could see faces turning toward each other with whispers full of intentions that she’s sure she wouldn’t appreciate. 

That’s when she saw him. 

Jake, sitting pretty close to the front (way closer than she thought to look for him). He stared straight at her, while many of the other eyes in the crowd averted from her direction. He offered her an encouraging smile, nodded his head firmly at her. 

He was right. They’d talked about this. She _had it_.

So she reached up and adjusted the microphone, pulling it to an appropriate height. She gave Jake a warm smile, then she turned her head straight toward Jeremy Winkler. 

“Hello everyone. My name is Amy Santiago—and I belong.” She paused for a moment to allow Jeremy’s bewildered expression to commit to her memory. He was expecting her to fumble it. She looked away from him pointedly and nodded to everyone. “That’s something that I wish I had heard from one of my leaders—any of my leaders—in my first few years with the NYPD.”

She went on to deliver her entire speech perfectly, eloquently detailing the way that she planned to be the sort of leader that she always craved as a young officer. She detailed the ways that she personally would have benefitted from a strong female leader, something that, through her many talks with Jake the night before, she’d decided didn’t have to be something to shy away from. Strong female leaders were important, diversity is important, and while the NYPD had a lot of work to do before they were even close to reaching an acceptable level of diversity in their system, she was proud to be included in the beginnings of the change. She was excited to see other women in the audience, women above her rank and women who were newer to the force.

Through her speech, her eyes flickered to Jake every so often to find him looking completely immersed in the speech like he hadn’t heard it thirty times since they’d woken up to alarms that he had so carefully (and thoughtfully) set for 7am on, yes, a Saturday. She dragged him to the shower with her so she could rehearse the speech to him, and he only grumbled a little bit about how _he set the alarms for her, not for him._ She sank to her knees between the fourth and fifth recitation, a quick thank you that he _swore_ he didn’t deserve. _This is just what friends do—_ He groaned quietly, leaned back against the shower wall. _—okay, yeah, don’t stop doing that._

He gave her his notes on the speech while she did her makeup, then they were onto recitation six through eleven. Two more recitations through coffee, three more during breakfast, one final one before he had to go find a seat. He looked into her eyes, gave her hand a little squeeze as he assured her for what must have been the hundredth time that _she’s got this._

And he was right. 

But had she not found his face in the crowd, had she not seen him looking up at her with that encouraging grin, had she not gone over the speech with him countless times, she may not have had it. Finding him quieted the hurricane in her mind, brought her a moment of clarity, allowed her to come back to herself in a moment of chaos.

He inspired in her something she had never experienced before. With him, she was _her_. She was honest. She was free to be who she was around him, smart and strong, all lame jokes and nerdy interests and femininity that more often than not was expressed in pantsuits that he liked just as much as the dresses she wore when they were undercover. She could tell him what she wanted, didn’t hesitate to, and he always regarded her with a gentleness that she never expected, no matter how many times he’d shown it to her. 

He changed her. He didn’t change her in that he made her a different person, but he changed her in that she was open to being herself in a new setting, in front of people she barely knew. With him, she was an expanded version of herself. And it had been that way from the first time they met. Now, as they got to know each other better, he helped her to leave her comfort zone. He pushed her boundaries. They pushed their boundaries _together_. He was there, whispering words of encouragement in her ear through following her lead on a case, through another shared laugh, through actual whispers, every now and then. 

She couldn’t always anticipate his next move, and that scared her to death. She loved the known, welcomed the expected, admired predictability. The only things she could consistently predict about Jake regarded either jokes or soft kisses. What was she supposed to do with that? 

She was left with a slew of confusing thoughts plaguing her mind. She liked him. She _definitely_ liked him, she thought. She’d been dancing around signs that she liked him for weeks leading up to this moment. Why else would she have shown up to his apartment on his birthday? Sure, it was easy enough to say that it was just a friendly thing to do, but if she had been doing it as just a friend, why wouldn’t she have just taken him to the bar with the rest of the squad? He would have had just as much (well… maybe not _quite_ as much) fun there as he did with just her. But she _didn’t_ bring him to the bar. She brought him some of his favorite things. She brought him alcohol and she situated herself against his chest and made a complete fool of herself in front of him, and he laughed and smiled and reassured her that it was perfect. 

He kissed her. God, the way he kissed her. He kissed her soft and slow, his lips barely brushing hers but somehow conveying so much in the gesture. She _thought_ he was conveying so much. She _felt_ so much. He kissed her hard and fast: need, desire, passion. He kissed her like she held the answers to every deep-rooted question in the universe, like the only way to extract those answers was by method of his tongue on hers. He kissed her like he wanted to, like he wanted _her_. She wanted him. 

But she was entering dangerous territory now. 

This is how it happened. It had happened before. This is how things came crashing down around her. Just because it felt like this now, did not mean that things would stay this way. Just because Jake was different from other people she’d been with, didn’t mean that _she_ was different. She had a knack for breaking things down, and she couldn’t lose her focus with work for something she would definitely end up destroying. She was good at this, at losing her focus when it mattered most, when she had the most to lose. 

Try as she might to keep things separate, her worlds were quickly infiltrating one another. This didn’t feel like just sex anymore. The confusion she felt meant that there were feelings looming somewhere inside her, feelings that she hadn’t yet let see the light of day. Would she ever? 

Feelings were messy. She couldn’t afford to be messy. She had a plan. She had an important plan that had already been thrown off when her precinct closed. How was she going to continue on her path if she took on a whole new relationship right now? 

A relationship, she specified, with Jake Peralta. 

She never planned on falling for him. She hadn’t fully accepted that she was falling for him, even now. She wasn’t an idiot. She was breaking her own rules for him, and that didn’t mean nothing. 

They were so different. They were great as friends, complementary as partners. They were _explosive_ in bed. She hadn’t realized that she could learn new things about herself sexually, and she got the feeling that Jake had been similarly surprised in himself once or twice, too. 

She liked him as a person. She liked him as a friend. She liked him. As a partner, as a professional, as a detective. _She liked him._

She was rappelling on the side of a mountain. Looking over the edge, the vast distance to the rocky ground below. She had never done this before, never been up quite this high. The day she met him, she knew she should have worn a harness, but she ignored her own warnings. She didn’t need a safety net. She wasn’t going to fall for him. 

Now the only way down was to fall. 

She caught his eye as she stepped around the edge of the stage. He smiled and waved, and she returned the gesture before she got pulled away by a group of superior officers. She listened intently to them, answered their questions and exchanged information, but her eyes kept straying to him, smiling proudly as he waited for her. 

Her breathing was never quite steady around him. She was getting swept up again, even now. The clouds rolled steadily in, and when she looked at him, she was sure. When it rained, it poured. 

If Jake Peralta was a thunderstorm, then she forgot to bring her umbrella. 

And _fuck_ , that ruins all her plans.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> we have a ton to debrief on this chapter. 
> 
> Teddy????????? (did I scare you for a second there when he asked about her room?)
> 
> Jeremy????????
> 
> Jake???????? Also if it wasn't clear Julian is one of Amy's brothers. 
> 
> I don't know guys I'm tired and I just edited 16,000 words bear wITH ME 
> 
> Thanks everybody for sticking with this fic!! I appreciate all the love and love all of you. ¨̮ 
> 
> stay safe and inside ya lil germs!!


	9. is it too late to follow you out?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Enter, stage right: the conflict chapters. 
> 
> Chapter title from Mayday Parade's Priceless.
> 
> _You'll be the reason,_  
>  _I'll be uneven,_  
>  _You've got me on the edge to jump for you._
> 
> _You'll be my fire,_  
>  _Call me a liar,_  
>  _We'll make mistakes the way we always do._  
>  _We always do._
> 
> _And now I'm starting every sentence with an apology._  
>  _Oh, what's you're reason for leaving now?_  
>  _Is it too late to follow you out?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy 3am guys! Between quarantine and animal crossing, I forgot what a sleep schedule even is. 
> 
> Enjoy this mess.

He leaned against the kitchen counter, more thoughts plaguing his mind than he was willing to welcome. She was on her way over and he definitely needed to get out of this headspace before she arrived. 

What even _was_ this headspace? Despondence, perhaps. A word he’d learned when Gina dragged him to go see Hamilton, but a word he hadn’t actually understood until Amy corrected his use of it—which she’d called _atrocious._

His mind kept travelling back to the conference, to the friendship and affection he felt between them that day. He wanted more than that friendship. He had the opportunity to bring it up when Teddy incorrectly assumed they were dating, but instead of taking advantage of the misunderstanding to actually push for something more, he made a stupid joke out of it. 

That was like him, deflecting away from the emotion in lieu of a joke, even when it would ultimately harm him to do so. Maybe _more_ when it would ultimately harm him to do so. Self-sabotaging? Hurting himself before someone else had the opportunity to hurt him? Nah, way too dark. He figured it was probably more along the lines of _crippling fear of rejection when it really mattered_. And with Amy? It _really_ mattered to him.

Speaking of Teddy though, that brought on a whole new series of annoying thoughts. After Amy’s speech—her _awesome_ speech—there were a few minutes before she stepped off of the side of the stage. He made his way over to the area where she entered, figuring that he could hang around there for her to exit. He was glancing around at different groups of people when he heard his name from behind him. 

“Detective Peralta?” 

He turned on his heel, confused until he found Teddy Wells staring back at him. “Uh… Teddy, hi.” He stood there awkwardly for a moment, waiting for Teddy to say something, but he just looked at him. His eyebrows drew together like he was in thought. Jake tried not to let his expression get the best of him as he searched for something to say. Amy mentioned that Teddy wasn’t the reason that her precinct closed. She basically said that he was an okay guy, albeit a little boring and overbearing, and yet there was something about him that felt very off putting to Jake. “Did you, uh, enjoy the presentation?” 

“Look, I’m just gonna cut right to the chase here, Peralta.” He paused again, and Jake wondered idly if he should just walk away. “I know that you’re dating Amy, and I tried to respect that,” Jake noted that he had only been under the impression that they were dating for somewhere around fourteen hours, so clearly he hadn’t tried that hard to respect it, “and that’s cool and all, but I’m just gonna be honest. I’m still in love with her. And I’m not going to stop trying to win her back.” 

Jake opened his mouth to speak, then slowly shut it again. What do you even say to something like that? Especially when Amy wasn’t even _actually_ his girlfriend. What he _wanted_ to say was something along the lines of yeah, well, guess what Teddy—neither of us are good enough to be with her and we should probably both stop trying. Instead, he said, “Right… Look, Teddy, I don’t want to speak for Ames or anything—”

“Ames?” 

“Amy,” Jake corrected, averting his eyes to the floor. “But from what she’s said to me… I don’t know if she wants you to keep trying?” His voice went up at the end, as if it were a question. He knew for a fact there was no question about it.

Teddy frowned. He looked down at the ground, then nodded back up at Jake. “Yeah, you’re right. You probably shouldn’t speak for Ames.” 

He wished he could explain why that was the thing that pulled him into defense mode. His jaw flexed as he gritted his teeth. He had no right to be standing here arguing with Amy’s ex-boyfriend. _Especially_ not here, where any scene that was caused would reflect on Amy. Of everything she would be involved in that day, this is not what she needed to be remembered for. He needed to keep his mouth shut. 

“So, I guess what I’m saying is enjoy it while it lasts, because I’m not going anywhere. And true love always prevails.” 

Jake scoffed quietly, and Teddy raised his eyebrows like he was going to say something else, but he just shook his head. “I have to go. Give her my regards, Peralta.” 

Jake grumbled under his breath. “Yeah, you got it, _Ted.”_

Yeah, he wasn’t gonna be telling Amy about that. Why risk getting her all upset and flustered again? Especially when this was _her_ day? Teddy shouldn’t be given the chance to take that away from her, with his regards and _true love_ , or whatever. And that’s the _only_ reason he wasn’t going to bring it up. Amy had versed him well in pro/con lists over the course of their partnership, and it took him all of four seconds to confirm that there were _zero_ pros involved in bringing this up to her. 

He had just managed to chase the scowl off of his face when he turned to find Amy exiting the stage. She smiled over at him as a superior officer led her to a nearby group. She did so well, which of course, he expected, but he was still so proud of her. She didn’t always believe in herself the way that he wished she did. It was nice to have a front row seat to watch her seeing herself similarly to the way that he did. Based on the determined grin on her face throughout her speech, he was pretty sure she had gotten a glimpse of the Amy that he always saw. 

So when things basically just went back to normal when they left… He’d been left with a bit of an ache, he supposed. They’d met up a few times since the conference. All of them quick—rushed and covetous—none of them ending with her in his arms, all of them ending with her leaving his apartment for the night. After having gotten to experience a few soft, close moments with her (though surely not as frequently as he’d been craving), the complete, abrupt severance of anything even resembling intimacy was getting to him.

They were still friends, sure, and things at work had been great. They’d still maintained their typical back and forth, joke-y atmosphere. They still exchanged glances and, twice now, that long distance pinky swear gesture, confirmations that they were definitely on for later. So on that front, everything was _great_.

It’s not that he was feeling _used_ , per se. It was more so that he was feeling… empty? They had a weird sort of codependency, one that wasn’t entirely irregular as partners, but that got a little blurry when they were no longer at work. He could anticipate her moves better than any other partner he’d ever had. It seemed to him that they were always in tune with one another, always in sync—while on a case. As soon as they made their way home, not only were they no longer on the same page, but they were in two completely different books. Maybe even in two separate libraries. 

He felt at war with himself around her. For every positive thing he felt, there was a negative emotion tugging at it. Desire, desolation. Admiration, frustration. Attraction, isolation. He was hopelessly full of confusing, romantic feelings that would go unrequited, his pessimism sparring with any bit of hope he allowed himself to feel. 

To put it mildly… He was in a mood. Try as he might to correct it, he was still looking down at the floor underneath furrowed eyebrows when he heard her car pull up. 

She seemed to be in her own mood when she stepped through his door, her raised eyebrows giving away her surprise at finding him standing in the living room looking frazzled. 

“Oh, hey—you remembered I was coming over, right?” She was already toeing off her shoes. She adjusted her jeans on her hips, then flashed him a playful smile.

He smiled tightly at her. “I remembered.” 

She reached up to tuck her hair behind both ears, then tilted her shoulder up near her chin as she smiled. “Good.” 

She crossed the distance between them, resting an elbow on his shoulder. Her fingers trailed through his hair, resting comfortably at the nape of his neck. Her other hand slid its way up his chest, following the curve around his neck until her thumb was on the edge of his jaw. 

His hands automatically fit to her hips, sliding against her curves. He kept his eyes down at her waist, where he idly toyed with the edge of her shirt. 

“Sooo… Should we take this to the bedroom?” 

He took a deep breath, kept his eyes low. He could feel her watching him, but he resisted looking up. “Ames…” 

“Hey.” 

He glanced up at her request, his jaw clenched.

“Do you not wanna take this to your room? I’m okay here.” Her eyes bored into him and it took him a moment to be able to look away again. 

His focus went back to his hands, his fingers tugging at her shirt, his thumbs rubbing circles onto her exposed skin. She pushed her hips closer to his. “Is everything okay?”

He nodded without looking up at her. Her fingers traced gently along his neck. “Jake.” 

He knew that if he looked up at her, she’d ask him another question. And he knew that if she asked him another question, he’d have a hard time answering it honestly. And he knew if he didn’t answer her honestly, she’d catch on to him. What he _didn’t_ know, is if he was ready for her to catch on to him. 

If she shared his feelings… Wouldn’t that have become apparent by now? He was pretty certain that he was getting more obvious about his own feelings, though he felt far from ready to come right out and tell her about them. But she was the one that was still rushing through being with him, she was the one who always left. If she had feelings for him too, wouldn’t she… stay?

So instead of simply looking up at her… He kissed her. 

It started soft and chaste. His lips brushed against hers. He tightened his grip on her hips, one arm moving to wind around her waist. She smiled against his lips, and he nudged her nose with his, both of them laughing softly. When his lips met hers again, he was fueled by a little more confidence. She pulled his face closer to hers, held him in place, her lips soft, yet demanding on his. 

He pulled back, keeping his lips on hers, but taking her down a notch in intensity. _He_ kissed _her_. Just this once, he was going to call the shots. If she wanted to kiss him, she’d slow down. She obliged him, her tongue adjusting to match his pace. Her hands, however, didn’t get the memo. She was making quick work of his buttons, and he had to release her hips to take hold of her hands, to stop her. 

He redirected her hands to his hips, redirected them again when they slipped underneath his shirt, finally settling on coming back up to his chest, following the curve of his shoulder. They explored one another for a moment before she was pulling out of the kiss. His lips followed the curve of her jaw down to her neck, unperturbed by her frustrated sigh.

“Jake.” God, he loved that little edge of desperation in her voice. He loved doing that to her; tried to ignore the little rush he felt. He hummed against her throat, delighting in the similar sound that she shot back at him. “Please.” 

He had never been great at resisting her. Be it her advances or her pleas, he crumbled for her every time. He bit softly at her skin before detaching his lips from her completely. His fingers traced shapes against the fabric of her shirt, dancing across her sides. “Please what?” 

She rolled her eyes. “You _know what.”_

His lips pulled into a smirk, becoming a bit more pronounced when he watched her eyes flash down to his mouth. “I might. But what if I wanna hear you say it?” 

“What if I don’t wanna say it?” 

He shrugged. “I was perfectly fine with what I was doing.” He leaned back in toward her neck.

 _“Jake,”_ she repeated with a little more ambition. He pulled back, his eyes expectant as he looked at her. She sighed, less desperate and more annoyed. _“Please_ speed things up a little.” 

He frowned. “Yeah, not as sexy as I’d imagined it.” 

“Oh my god, shut up and kiss me.” 

He laughed on his way to fulfill her request. He did as she asked, not quite meeting their usual eagerness, but definitely a jump from the kiss they’d previously shared. His hands travelled up her back, pausing around her middle to bring her closer. He bit her lip softly, laughing at her heated exhale as he pulled back a bit. “Something like that?” 

She pushed him, guiding him until the backs of his knees hit the edge of his couch. He tumbled backward, the whole thing looking a little clumsy, but no one would’ve ever been able to tell if that hadn’t been her intention. She settled onto his lap triumphantly, her hands moving back to his buttons as showed him exactly what kind of kiss she was talking about. 

He let himself be guided back into the cushions by her insistent hands, no qualms at all when he was wrapped up in her like this. She left one button clasped, abandoning her task to rake her fingers through his hair. He hummed into the kiss, melting into one of his favorite sensations. He lost himself for just a second, his fingers dipping underneath the back of her shirt. She groaned when he realized what he was doing and resituated his hand outside of the fabric. 

“Why are you holding back?” She suddenly asked. She adjusted in his lap, a quick, repetitive rolling motion, and his hands shot down to her hips to hold her in place, his eyes squeezing shut while he pushed toward her friction. When he opened his eyes, she was smirking proudly at him. He quirked an eyebrow at her, grinning as he shook his head. 

Suddenly, he was pushing her back, guiding her carefully into the cushions. _He_ was calling the shots. “Because _I_ want to kiss you like _this_.” 

He showed her instead of telling her. His hand found her jaw, shifting her so he could kiss her more easily. His kisses were decidedly slower, more lips and less tongue than she’d been using, but heated all the same. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and he gave her just a bit of pressure, pushing her into the cushions with two long grinding motions. He gave her one final chaste kiss before he tipped his forehead against hers, working to correct his breathing. 

She panted against his lips, and he let her grind closer to him for a moment before he pulled back. 

“No,” she gave him a quick kiss, one that mirrored his last effort. “Too slow.” 

He dodged her lips. “You know what I think?” She breathed evenly, her eyes intent on his lips as he spoke. “I think you’re scared.” 

Her eyebrows pulled together, her eyes flashing back up to his. “I’m sorry, what?” 

He pressed his palms into the cushions above her shoulders, pushing himself up so he could get a better look at her. He swallowed, trying to take advantage of his quickly faltering courage. “I said I think you’re scared.” 

“Of _what?”_

He shrugged without moving his hands. “Getting close to me?” 

She scoffed, twisting under his arm to sit up and move away from him. “Yeah, you caught me, Jake.” 

The sarcasm was thick in her voice, which is both what he was afraid of and what he expected. “Wow.” He said it nonchalantly, though his words _did_ reflect how he was feeling. “That really hurt, Santiago.” 

She shook her head at him. “You’re ridiculous.” 

He grinned. “Ridiculously sexy?” 

“Ridiculously _something.”_

He made a face at her, then crawled his way back over to her lap. He leaned in slowly, giving her time to push him away if she wanted to. She didn’t. This kiss was much closer to what she wanted from him. She relaxed back into the cushions, her hands scrabbling for purchase, tugging his undershirt up in search of skin.

This time, he didn’t allow time for his breathing to settle. “You know what else I think?” He paused to breathe, a little chuckle slipping out of his lips. “I think this is all about control for you.” 

She scoffed again, pulling away from him to stand up from the couch completely. He leaned back to accommodate her, then sat on the couch to watch her. He assumed she was leaving. Instead, she turned toward his bedroom. She stopped abruptly, rotating to look at him. “If you’re gonna act like you know me, we’re gonna do it in here.” 

He laughed, hopping over the back of the couch to follow her. “I _do_ know you, Amy. How long have we been partners now for you to say—”

“That’s different,” she interrupted. “You know that’s different.”

“I know _you.”_

She reached her hand behind her, taking hold of the bottom of his shirt. Maybe that’s why she left that single button buttoned, because it was working as a great handle for her now. She pulled him behind her into the room. As soon as they stepped into the room, she turned and pushed him against the wall. 

She moved in close to him, her lips barely touching his. “If you know me so well, then kiss me the way _I_ want to be kissed.”

She didn’t give him the chance, initiating the exact kiss that she wanted. She pushed him against the wall, all hot and rough and demanding, and he loved every second of it. She planted her fingers in his hair, tipping his head back as she followed his jaw down to his neck, stopping to suck on that one spot she knew would always shut him up. He groaned, pulling her hips against him and _fuck,_ she was definitely winning this battle. 

He laughed again, a little broken by the whine she pulled out of him. “Tell me that wasn’t just about control, Santiago.” She bit his neck, and he gasped. He laughed. “Look me in the eyes and tell me that had nothing to do with control, and I’ll drop it.” 

She shook her head as she stepped away from him, making her way over to his bed. She stood at the foot of the bed, and he followed her. “C’mon, Amy.” 

She turned to look at him then. Her eyebrows were pulled together, some combination of frustration and defiance, and he wasn’t sure what came over him. He kissed her _hard_. His hands found her waist, pulled her against him. He turned and leaned against the bedpost, sighing as one of her hands grazed across denim, squeezing gently. There was nothing soft, nothing delicate about this kiss, and he simultaneously loved it and despised it. 

“Take off your pants,” she commanded, voice soft, but stern. He laughed, his voice just as even as hers. 

“You know, I finally understand it all.” He let her interrupt him with a kiss. “Yeah, after seeing you at work all this time? You’re such a,” he paused momentarily as she pulled at his button, tugging his hips forward with the movement. He took a deep breath, exhaling on a laugh. “You’re so _good_ all the time. This is it for you, isn’t it?” 

She narrowed her eyes, unbuttoning the final button on his shirt and guiding it off of his arms slowly. He kept his eyes on her. “I _said_ take off your pants.” 

“It’s _okay_ , Amy. You can talk about it—” 

“I don’t want to talk. I want you to take your pants off.” 

“Tell me about how you’re _so_ good. You’re always following all the rules and doing _exactly_ what you’re told.” He glanced down at her lips, then raised his eyebrows. “Tell me about it, Ames.” 

She tugged down his jeans roughly, letting them fall to his feet. “Is that what I came here to do today? Talk?” 

He leaned in to kiss her, but she turned away from the kiss. He laughed again as he leaned his forehead on hers, tracing his fingers against her hips. “You know what you came here for.” He tried again, and this time she allowed him to press a quick kiss against her lips. “I’m just saying, I finally get it. You’re so used to following the rules,” he paused for another kiss, this one a little longer, “but _here_ , with me? You _make_ the rules. That’s why it’s so important to you to keep this as what it is.”

She kissed him this time, more to shut him up than because she even wanted to. She didn’t want to hear him talking about this, didn’t want him analyzing her and her actions and motives. She didn't want him to explain what he meant by _what it is_. She knew the alternative, didn’t want to hear him say the words out loud. She was trying to distance herself from that kind of thinking regarding their relationship. She didn’t want any of that. All she fucking _wanted_ was for him to take his pants off, the one thing that she _came there for him to do_ , the one thing that their entire agreement revolved around, but of course he couldn’t do that, because he’s _Jake_.

“Yeah? And why exactly do you think that’s so important to me?” 

He was looking down at her again with that stupid, cute look on his face. He brought his hand up to her cheek, ran his thumb over her bottom lip. “Control.” 

Then his lips were on hers again, his fingers tangling into the hair at the nape of her neck and she was glad but she was _mad_ because who did he think he was? He thought he could just come in here and act like he knew her? So what, they’d been getting closer lately? So what, they’d been meeting a few times a week for the past few months? So what, they were partners, so _what_ they were friends? What did that really mean, anyway? 

They _didn’t_ know each other. Not really, at least. Not outside of work, in like, a _real_ way. So what, they’d had a few encounters that decidedly felt a little more than friendly? So what, she could tell when he’d had a bad day just by looking at him? He was her partner, they were in tune like that. Besides, a lot of people could probably do that. So what, she knew how he’d look at her when she’d have a good quip back for one of his stupid jokes. She knew the way his eyes would crinkle in the corner and he’d do that stupid thing with his tongue when he tried not to laugh. That didn’t matter. And yeah, she was getting better at figuring out where he was going to take a conversation based on the scenario, be it ninja turtles or Die Hard, something that happened in high school or an old case. But again, _none_ of that mattered. 

They didn’t know each other. They didn’t really talk. They did _this. This_ being making out in the darkness of his bedroom, _this_ being her tugging his boxers off of his waist and earning a surprised gasp, _this_ being him hungrily sliding his hands up her shirt. 

He _didn’t_ know her. She would show him. 

She pulled at his wrists, one up her shirt and the other already tucked in the front of her unbuttoned pants, and guided them back behind his back. He laughed softly against her lips, letting her do with him what she wanted, unbeknownst to him that what she wanted could possibly be categorized under the heading _cruel and unusual punishment._

It had been pretty easy, because she still had her cuffs tucked away in the pocket she always kept them in on her side. Easy, because he was always so willing to move however she wanted him to. Easy because they had talked about this, one of the few times that they spent talking about their boundaries and parameters, and this was definitely within the realm of things he was comfortable with. 

He heard the sound of the cuffs clasping, that undeniable metal scraping sound, before he registered the cool metal against his wrists. Her lips were still on his when he noticed, and even once he was tugging his wrists in an attempt to touch her again, even when the metal chain was grinding against the wooden bedpost and preventing him, he didn’t break the kiss. He whined softly in what she thought was protest, but his tongue still played against hers. 

She broke the kiss, laughing quietly as she stretched up to whisper in his ear. “Did you know I was gonna do that?” 

She felt a little swell of pride when he shivered at the question. She had already been touching him, and she already knew that he was hard, but now? She laughed softly as she stepped away from him, biting her bottom lip as she admired the scene in front of her. Jake, completely naked, watching her with dazed, determined eyes. His chest rose and fell quickly as he recovered from the breathlessness of the kiss. She watched the muscles in his biceps tense as he tugged his arms forward helplessly. 

“What is this?” He finally asked, voice steady, though she could tell that he wasn’t feeling quite as stable as he sounded. 

She shrugged. “You should’ve just taken off your pants.” 

His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed. “Are you saying—is this… Is this a punishment?”

She didn’t say anything, but she saw the smile that he was trying his hardest to bite away. He was trying to force his lips into submission, but he was all but failing at hiding the eager little smirk of anticipation. 

She took another step back, shrugging her shoulders and looking him up and down. She began slowly unbuttoning her top. 

“Oh my god, what are you gonna _do_ to me? I’m so excited,” he chattered happily, leaning back against the bedpost. 

“I’m not gonna do anything to you,” she replied, making a real show out of getting through those last few buttons. She slid the shirt off of her shoulders and folded it, setting it on his dresser. He narrowed his eyes, mouth slightly agape as he watched her undress. 

Jake had already begun the process of removing her pants, so all she had to do was hook her thumbs around her waist band, slowly wiggling her hips out of them as she dragged the fabric lower. She heard him exhale slowly, though she was still facing away from him. 

“You’re not going to do anything to me?” He began again when she stopped swaying her hips, folding her pants and setting them on top of his dresser, too. 

She laughed quietly. “Nope.” Still facing the dresser, she reached her hands behind her back, quickly unclasping her bra and letting the straps fall down her arms. She adjusted her hair, shifting so the waves fell comfortably on her back. 

This time, when he spoke, his voice was much weaker. “Amy…” 

She turned to look at him, hands already busy pawing at her breasts the same way she knew he liked to. His eyebrows pulled together, forehead creasing as he realized what this punishment meant. Even in the dim light, she could see his eyes darting all across her body. 

“I’m not going to do anything to you,” she continued. “I’m just going to do a few things to _me_.” 

A quiet, unintentional sound escaped his throat, and she laughed quietly in response. She continued dragging her fingertips across her skin, pushing her breasts together, twisting at her nipples gently. She made a satisfied little humming sound. “Mmmm, I have to be honest, I think your hands feel much better.” 

When she looked back at him, smug smile across her lips, he was shaking his head. “Let me show you how—”

“You should’ve just taken off your pants, Jake. That’s all you had to do—”

“Give me another chance. Let’s start over, put everything back on, let me just—”

“You _had_ chances.” 

She pulled at her panties, drawing his attention to her waist. He groaned softly. “You know, for someone who claims they can’t dance, you sure aren’t having any trouble moving your hips right now.” 

“I think it’s the rhythm that’s the problem, not the movement,” she informed, pulling the lace back into place on her hips. He hummed in agreement. 

“Safe word is still—”

“I won’t need it,” he interrupted.

 _“Lawyer,”_ she shot back. “Just in case.”

He ignored her, his eyes glazing back across her body. “Amy, you don’t have to do this…” He trailed off, glancing between her hands as one moved back to her chest, the other travelling between her legs. “Ames…” 

“Should I use a toy? Or no toy? What do you think?” 

“No toy,” he replied automatically. 

She raised her eyebrows. “That was a really strong reaction… I feel like I should do the opposite.” 

“Amy…” He began again, voice pleading. She turned on her heel, heading over toward his closet. “Ames,” he tried again, “c’mon, not the box.”

She glanced over at him mischievously before she stretched up to grab the box in question off the top shelf of his closet. It was admittedly a little higher than would have been preferable for her. He typically retrieved the box. She set it down on the edge of the bed, ignoring him watching her pointedly as she rifled through the contents. She emerged with a long, pink toy in her hand. She tapped a button on the end and the sound of vibration filled the room momentarily before she tapped it again, shutting it off. She turned back to Jake with a smile on her face, finding him almost looking pained. 

“Amy, c’mon. I can make you feel so good, just let me—” He paused, the only sound between them his shaky breathing as he watched her slip the toy into her mouth, twisting her wrist as she slid it in and out a few times, her lips making a little _pop_ sound as she pulled it back out. _”Come on.”_

“Where do you wanna see me? On your bed or—”

“My bed,” he interrupted. “I wanna see you on the bed.” 

She laughed softly. “Why do I get the feeling that you’re trying to get me to do the opposite like I did last time?”

He whined quietly. “Ames, please…” 

She clicked the button on again, licking at the toy seductively before tracing the gentle vibrations from her collarbone down to her breasts, rubbing little circular motions on her nipples and making one of those breathy sounds that always got him riled up. She trailed the wand down her belly slowly, hips rolling toward the sensation that she knew was coming. She all but ignored the sound of Jake tugging incessantly at his cuffs, and then she was rubbing the toy teasingly between her legs, not giving herself enough stimulation to really call for the sounds she was making purely to torture Jake. 

When she clicked it back off and looked at him, he looked approximately like he had seen some combination of a ghost and actual John McClane standing in front of him. He cleared his throat quietly. “Is that, uh… it? Is it over?” 

She tipped her head back in laughter. “Of course that isn’t it. You _said_ you wanted me on the bed, remember?” 

He made a little sound at the back of his throat as he watched her focus shift back to the box. “Are you getting—” He trailed off, whining a little more audibly. “No.” 

She chuckled quietly, presenting a small, familiar bottle to him. She turned back to face him, a bright smile on her face. 

He sighed, tipping his head toward the bottle. “Oil-based?” He tutted quietly. “In this economy?” 

She rolled her eyes at him, looking over her shoulder so he could see the gesture as she set the box back on the shelf in his closet. She moved over to set everything she needed on the bed. “You know I’d never buy an oil-based lubricant.” 

“‘Lubricant,’” he repeated. “God, please continue with the dirty talk, you’re really getting me going.” 

His eyebrows drew back together as she approached him, a serious look in her eyes, the vibrator still in her hand. She placed her free hand on his shoulder, dragging the toy in different patterns down his chest, across his pubic bone, and back up. The soft silicone dragged smoothly across his skin, and he looked down to watch her movements, his breathing slow and shallow. He leaned down to kiss her, and she obliged him for a moment. She was having fun teasing him, but she wasn’t lying when she’d made that comment about his hands being better than hers. She wasn’t going to stop, but she did kind of miss his tongue on hers. She missed his tongue other places, too. 

He inhaled sharply when she clicked the button on, wand pressed against one of his nipples. He made a soft, satisfied hum, then trailed into a little laugh. “I thought you weren’t gonna do anything to me?” 

She looked up at him seriously, drawing the wand down his chest slowly. “Do you want me to stop?” 

He shook his head. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” 

She went up on her toes to kiss him again, making that same trip, trailing the vibration from his chest, down past his pubic bone until she was at the base of his cock. She dragged it across his length slowly, taking time to kiss that sensitive spot on his neck when he let his head fall to the side, eyes closed tight. He jerked his wrists forward lightly, an effort to reach for her waist. 

“Let me touch you,” he whispered. She flicked the vibrator over the tip of his dick, smiling at his little whimper in response. She clicked it off, tossing it on the bed. As soon as it was no longer touching him, he was back to trying to talk his way out of his punishment. “Ames, please,” he leaned in and kissed a spot that he could reach on her neck. “I can make you feel so good, let me show you––”

He stopped when she pressed a finger against his lips. “I’m gonna show _you_ how good _I_ can make me feel.” 

“Look,” Jake continued, watching closely as she tucked her fingers back underneath her underwear and began sliding them back down her hips slowly. His words seemed to get faster and faster as he continued. “I _support you_ and women’s rights are so important and you can do anything I can do better, but let me show you how good I can make you feel, Ames. Let me _help_.” 

“It’s a _punishment_ , Jake. It’s not that I don’t believe you can do it. I know you can.” 

She bent all the way down as she guided her panties down her legs, taking them off and pushing them to the side with Jake’s clothes. Instead of going back up, she kneeled in front of him. 

“What are you—”

“I figured if I’m gonna tease you, I should probably take it all the way, right?” She met his eyes confidently as he looked down at her. She followed the same path with her tongue that she did with the vibrator, stopping to wrap her tongue around him momentarily. The chain on the cuffs jingled again as he pulled it against the post. He groaned quietly, and when she looked up at him, she could see the tension in his jaw, but he didn’t say anything. 

She littered kisses across his body on her way back up, and when she was standing in front of him, he tucked his knee between her legs in a move that was anything but discreet. He worked to nudge her closer to him with his leg, not even attempting to hide his smile when she rolled her eyes at him. 

She took a step closer, raising one leg so that it was resting on the bed to his side. His eyes stayed on hers, questioning as she reached down to stroke him. She shifted closer, positioning him and giving him _just_ enough pressure to make him bite his lip and exhale roughly. 

In that moment, he was fully capable of doing two different things. He _could have_ drawn his hips forward. Cuffed to the bedpost, he still could have fucked her right there. Part of her _wanted him to_. If he had shifted to correct his angle and push closer to her, she would not have stopped him. But he didn’t do that. 

Instead, he turned to stone. He leaned his head back against the bedpost and if his thoughts could have broken the cuffs, she’s sure that he would have pulled her in for another one of those annoying, gentle kisses that he was so insistent on giving her when he pushed into her for the first time. But the cuffs remained, and he didn’t move. She readjusted, stepping away from him and stroking him again, sliding more easily from the contact. 

“Just wanted to remind you what you’re missing. What you could’ve had, if you’d just taken off your fucking pants.” 

He groaned again, eyes still closed and still leaned back on the bedpost. She almost felt bad for him. He looked so dishevelled, and when he opened his eyes they were so full of desire that it made her stomach flip. 

“Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten,” he mumbled, an eyebrow raised suggestively. _That_ is the thing that almost got her. She made it just fine through Jake begging to touch her, she could take the way his eyes travelled over every inch of her body. But the way he was leaned back with that stupid eyebrow cocked up, looking at her like he somehow had the upper hand? _That_ had her half-contemplating setting him free just so she could push him onto the bed and show him who _really_ had the upper hand. 

Side note, maybe she _did_ have a control thing…

She stepped closer to kiss him again, and that caught her attention because a few weeks earlier, she _never_ would have kissed him first. But now she was lacing her fingers into his hair just because she knew he liked it when she tugged softly when she pulled away. Maybe they didn’t completely _know_ each other, but they were undeniably _getting_ to know each other.

Maybe it started as just sex, but as much as she tried to keep their lives completely separate, little details made their way into their conversations. They seemed to always bump into each other in public, even when they weren’t spending their time together (which they did… kind of a lot, if she were being honest). She’d meet someone he knows, they’d find out they have a mutual friend, he would become a topic of conversation with that person, too. He’d find a way to sneak in some detail about a story from his twenties, or she’d mention something dumb her brother said that he just reminded her of.

He knew that she had seven brothers, and she knew that his dad left when he was a child. He knew she was allergic to dogs, and she knew that he claimed to be allergic to vegetables, but on a more serious note, was actually allergic to bees. They comforted each other on more than one occasion. He was there for her, not just at the conference, but almost every day. It went way further than him knowing that she liked it when he whispered that stupid nickname in her ear, his voice all low and commanding as he told her to come for him. 

Her feelings couldn’t really just be described as some kind of crush, because way more factored into this than simply the attraction she felt toward him. They were starting to actually get to know each other. 

And that was _terrifying_.

But she pushed the thought out of her mind as she let her fingertips fall away from his waist, let the fingers on her other hand tug through his hair, leaving him looking down at her with that dazed, adoring look he always got when she kissed him. She stepped around him and stretched out onto the bed, laughing when she heard the chain of the cuffs scrape against wood as he turned to follow the view she laid out for him. 

“You’re so beautiful,” his was voice a soft, low rumble, sounding in awe of what he was looking at. 

She rolled over to find an expression that matched. He was turned so that he was half-facing her, twisted as far as he could be without getting up onto the bed. 

“Come up here,” she replied softly. “I want you to see me.” 

He swallowed hard, but quickly adjusted so that he could climb onto the bed as seamlessly as possible. 

She leaned back on her elbows, letting her legs fall open and watching as his eyes fell directly between them. His wrist lurched forward, stopped by the cuffs, and she watched as his resolve crumbled just a little more. 

She let her palm lay flat as she slid her hand down her body, settling in between her legs. His eyes stayed trained there, watching every movement as she traced her fingers slowly. 

“You know, I _love_ when you touch me.” His eyes flashed up to her face as she spoke. 

“Tell me about it,” he said quickly, voice taking on a rough quality that she was very familiar with. “Tell me what you like.” 

“I like when you do that thing where you kiss the inside of my thighs first, before you–” She trailed off, closing her eyes as her fingers worked up to a steady rhythm. 

“Before I?” Jake prompted. 

“Before you go down on me,” she finished breathily. “I like when you do that, too.” 

He hummed an agreement. “I like doing it. What else?” 

Amy clicked on the vibrator, skipping over all the teasing things she was _going_ to do and rubbing it pointedly between her legs. She was busy thinking about him, thinking about the way he touched her, the way he felt when she was—

His voice was a little strained when he tried again. “What else do you like, Ames?” 

She was grinding her hips toward the sensation now, sighing breathily and trying to keep her thoughts together. “Jake—”

The chain jingled, then there was a rough sound as it slammed into the bedpost. “ _Fuck_ , I can’t do this,” his voice was raspy. She blinked her eyes open and found him staring at her, desire in his eyes. He clenched his jaw hard, and Amy bit her lip as she watched it flex.

She breathed through the sensations, trying to make her expression serious for a moment. “You can safeword out, Ja—oh fuck, Jake.” She paused, waiting for the safeword, but he didn’t say it. She could see how dark his eyes were even from across the bed, even in the dim light. She was sure she could break him. “Jake,” she repeated. “Oh god, _fuck_ , Jake—”

“Amy, I swear to god, I’m gonna break your bed—”

“Is that a threat, or a promise?”

“Both,” he replied, breathing hard. “It’s both, let me fuck you, _please_.” 

She moved her wrist more purposefully, moaning softly and arching her back. “Fuck, this feels so _good_.”

“I’m gonna fuck you so hard when I get out of these,” he murmured, voice low and steady and doing all the right things for her. Despite his even tone, the chain clanged against the wood as he uselessly tried to break free. 

He groaned as he watched her through narrowed eyes. She wasn’t sure exactly when he made the decision, but she could tell when he spoke again that something had shifted. 

“Does it feel good?” Her breath hitched, and he definitely noticed. “Tell me about how good it feels,” he directed. 

Her words were rushed. “So good. It feels _so_ good.”

“Mmmm, I can tell.” The metal jingled against the wood again. “But you’re gonna be done so fast if you keep doing it like that, right? Slow down for me, Ames.”

She shivered at the sound of his voice, at his specific request. Slow down for _him_. Reluctantly, she pulled some of the pressure away, shifting the focus from her clit to just tracing slowly, from her inner thigh, up to her clit, then back down to the other thigh. 

“Yeah, just like that,” Jake encouraged. “God, you look so pretty like this,” he whispered. “I could watch you all day.” 

_“Jake_ ,” her voice broke in the middle of his name, and she couldn’t see it, but his fists were balled up so tight behind his back that he wondered if it was possible to break his own hand like that. 

She continued tracing the route she had made, propping herself back up on an elbow so she could look at him. “Good, good,” he praised her restrained movements. “Now go ahead and reward yourself for how good you’re being.” He paused, and she immediately returned to her previous position, rubbing tiny little circles. She laid back against the bed, letting her legs fall open further for him. 

“I want you,” she said softly, back to grinding her hips against the little pink toy in her hand. 

Jake nodded. “What do you want me to do?” 

“I want you to fuck me.” She was looking at him again, and he was so grateful to be the subject of that particular gaze. Her eyebrows drew together, a little crease forming between them as she stared longingly at him. 

“I would love to fuck you,” he said with a smile, his voice trailing off into a little hum, “but I’m a little tied up at the moment.” He jerked at the cuffs again. “You wanna come get me, or you wanna come _for_ me?” 

She made some combination of sounds that had him wishing once again that he had just taken his pants off when she’d asked him to. He took that as his answer and began talking again. “You’re being so good, doing exactly what I tell you, babe.” Her body jerked slightly at the name. He’d never called her that before. He stored that reaction away for future use. “Turn that off.” 

She opened her eyes and looked at him with a quiet, reluctant whimper. Her hand strayed a little, trying to compromise without actually shutting it off. 

Jake laughed quietly. “You’re getting too close, Ames. I’m not done with you yet.” 

He tilted his head to the side, keeping her eye contact until she clicked the toy off with a dramatic eye roll and set it next to her. 

“Good,” he began, watching as her chest rose and fell slowly, her eyes trained on his face. She was waiting for instructions, he knew, and if he hadn’t been so caught up in deciding exactly what those directions were going to be, he may have laughed at her. He didn’t know her _at all_ , she claimed. “Start off the way I would.”

And she knew _exactly_ what he meant. She kept her eyes on his as she slid her hand down to grip at her hip, applying a little pressure to that sensitive spot he always teased her with. He was watching her now, but he was also picturing the times he’d touched her there. Against the side of his car the night of the Christmas party, as he pulled her into his lap the first time she’d come to his apartment. She’d whine against his lips every time he found that spot, tip her head back if he massaged it _just right_ with his thumb.

“Hey,” he said softly. He nodded toward her hand, moving up her torso already. “You’re moving way faster than I would.” 

She stopped in place, but she slumped back against the pillows. “It doesn’t feel as good as when you do it.” 

He bit his lip to stop himself from smiling. “Alright, fine. You know my move—” He stopped talking when her hands immediately travelled to her chest, and he had to admit that as much as he loved being the one touching her like that, he didn’t mind this view at all. Images filtered through his head, the way she leaned her head against his chest as he slid his hands up her shirt from behind. The moonlight hit her through the window, every purposeful movement he made causing her to shift against him, satisfied hums consistently falling against his throat.

“Like this?” She asked, looking at him from underneath her eyelashes. She wanted more from him, and here he was stuck in his head, thinking about all the times he’d touched her, but not sharing any of those memories with her. 

“Wish I could touch you myself,” he leaned against the bedpost, staring at her longingly. “You’re doing a pretty good job, but I think I could do better.”

She narrowed her eyes, but didn’t say anything. He was right, and she knew it. 

“I can’t wait to get out of these.” He tugged his wrists forward again, the sound of metal clanking against wood reverberating through the room. “Gonna touch you exactly how you need to be touched, give it to you the way you want me to.”

Her breath hitched. “How?”

He watched as her hands strayed down her ribs a few times, back down her abdomen before she’d catch herself, looking at him to see if he’d noticed. “Go ahead,” he nodded toward her hands. “You wanna touch yourself while I tell you what I’m gonna do to you?” 

Her fingers cautiously moved between her legs, afraid that if she was too enthusiastic he would tell her to stop. 

“Gonna start off by kissing your thighs. The way you like…” He trailed off, closing his eyes and shaking his head. He tilted his head to the side, opening his eyes when something else occurred to him. “Hey, what’d you bring out that,” he paused to put on his best Amy Santiago voice, “‘water-based lubricant’ for, anyway?” Her fingers stilled. “Haven’t seen you use it.” 

“Are you asking me to use it?” She blinked slowly at him, the corners of her lips tugging into a grin.

“Are you asking for my permission?” He shot back. He quirked an eyebrow at her. 

She remained still, watching him watch her. “No.” 

He didn’t let his face betray his disappointment. Just the prospect of her waiting for his approval, even when he didn’t have a modicum of control in the situation, had him digging his wrists against the cuffs in an effort to give himself some much needed attention. 

“I’m waiting for you to _tell me to_ ,” she clarified. 

His mouth went dry. It took him a moment to recover, his eyes fluttering shut, then his head tilting to look at her because _how_ could she be that hot and _how_ could he be this hard and how much blood was in his body anyway because it seemed like there was too much blood in a body for it to all be concentrated in that one spot but after she said that he could hear the rush in his ears and had it not been for his heart beating out of his chest, he would have been pretty certain that there was no blood left anywhere else in him. After finally composing himself, he was more than a little amused, but he didn’t dare let her see that. His voice came out cool, even. “You like it when I tell you what to do?” 

She stared back at him silently, waiting. Her fingers laid dormant between her legs, waiting for direction from him. 

He nodded, his tongue poking at the corner of his lips before he broke out into a grin. “Fuck, that’s hot.” He shook his head again, then cleared his throat. His voice was more stern when he spoke again. “I want you to get that _water-based lubricant_ ” he laughed softly, his voice quickly returning to a serious, sobering tone, “and I want you to rub it all over that toy.” 

She looked at him, eyes wide, some sickening combination of too innocent and too confident that had him entirely mesmerized by her. She tossed the bottle to the side after squirting some in her hand, then made an obscene little show of pumping her hand across the toy. 

“Like that, Jake?” 

He took a moment to respond, nodding before he managed to find his voice. “Just like that.” 

He watched her through narrowed eyes, her hand slowly dragging back and forth across the flexible toy. “You like watching me do this?” 

He nodded again. “I don’t not like it.” 

She winced. “Double negative… God, please continue with the dirty talk. _Really_ getting me going.” 

He shook his head at her, a laugh dying on his lips as she twisted her wrist pointedly while stroking the toy. “Fuck off, Amy.” 

She raised her eyebrows, blinking as if she were startled by his words. “Was that a request? Or just an expression?” 

“I can’t tell which one of us is calling the shots here, and that might be turning me on more?” He shifted, turning a little more toward her and leaning against the bedpost. 

She shifted the toy down between her legs, but didn’t allow it to touch her. “Was it a request or not?” 

“No,” he replied quickly. She stilled, looking curiously at him. He swallowed. “It was an order.” 

She hummed almost inaudibly, then her hand travelled straight to where they both wanted it. She was still propped up looking at him, but her hips rocked forward to grind against the toy in her hand. 

“Relax a little bit, Ames.” His voice was softer this time. “God, you’re beautiful.” 

She nodded, relaxing back into the pillows like he said. 

“Turn it back on.” This one was definitely a suggestion, quiet and gentle, a hint of a question in his voice. 

He watched as she opened her eyes, looking directly at him as she switched it on. He’d regretted a lot of things in his life, if he was being honest. Not many major things, mostly just little stuff here and there. This moment made his list. He should’ve just taken his fucking pants off. 

Amy’s head tipped to the side, her lips immediately parting and her eyes screwing shut. The softest sound slipped out of her, an almost-word that got lost in her pleasure. He wasn’t prepared at all for her to open her eyes, blinking through the sensations to look into his eyes as she twisted her wrist to slowly accommodate the toy into her. 

Her entire body reacted to the change. Her chest heaved with her little gasp, her legs falling open wider, her voice beginning soft, repeated utterances that he wished were falling closer to his ear. He watched her controlled, rhythmic movements closely. 

“Look at me,” he demanded quietly when he could tell she was getting close. She kept her eyes closed, her wrist working overtime, drawing more consistent sounds from between her lips. “Are you disobeying a direct order, Santiago?” Her eyes snapped open at his stern question. “Because there will be consequences for that sort of behavior.” 

“Jake—”

“Come for me,” he encouraged, revelling in the image in front of him. Desire twisted his stomach in knots. She struggled to keep her eyes trained on him, her sounds getting more enthusiastic by the second. “You’re so pretty, Ames. You look so good, just wanna see you come for me.” 

Her breathing became more labored, but her narrowed eyes stayed trained on his. She was getting so close, prolonging the orgasm that she was just on the edge of and if she was doing it just to fuck with him, it was absolutely working. His breathing was increasing with hers, and his praises and encouragements were running together so quickly, so animatedly that he wasn’t even sure what he was saying anymore. 

He knew the second her orgasm hit her. Her eyes snapped shut, her back arching off of the bed as she focused the vibration in just the right spot. She was so perfect, so fun to watch, but _god_ it would’ve been much more fun to join her. 

He was picturing it again, how things may have been going if he’d simply taken off his jeans on his own. He couldn’t place the moment that he stopped watching her, his eyes slipping shut to revel in the image of this view from a better vantage point, directly between her shaking thighs. He was so close to her, but unable to do any of the things he really wanted to do to her. He knew the spot on her inner thigh that made her shiver, knew every little ticklish spot on her body, but he couldn’t reach a single one. 

He hadn’t realized that he had dedicated almost a minute to thinking about all of this, his head leaned back against the bedpost as he reflected on every time he found a new spot that had some unintended reaction that he’d never be able to get over. The cold is what startled him the most, but her touch in general was shocking on its own, the sound he made falling somewhere between a yelp and a moan, half startled, half grateful that without warning, her hand was on his cock again. She wrapped her hand around him tight, pumping him in her hand, lube already warming from her efforts. 

“I have you handcuffed, and somehow you’re still the one telling _me_ what to do,” she whispered against his lips. He worked to take a steady breath, refraining from closing the distance between them. She wanted control, and he wanted her to have it. 

He stayed silent, leaning his forehead against hers and nudging her nose slightly with his. He was trying to encourage her to kiss him, but she just nudged him back gently. He moaned against her lips, her slick movements getting the best of him. His eyes stayed on hers, their breathing not quite syncing up as their lips almost touched. She let go of him, and he whined softly at the loss of her touch where he needed it most, sighed as she pressed her hand on his abdomen and trailed it up slowly.

Suddenly, all that intimacy he’d been missing crept up between them. Her lips brushed against his, their breath mingling together against one another’s lips. Her fingers moved up, past the thin trail of hair dusting his abdomen. She looked into his eyes. Past his belly button, she nudged his face to the side. Past that freckle on his side, a gentle kiss against his jaw. She followed the curve of his ribs, lips pressing into the sensitive spot on his neck. Fingers grazing over his nipple, tip of her tongue tracing the angle of his jaw. He shivered as she traced his collarbone, her fingertips pressing featherlight touches to his skin, her smile breaking to place a soft kiss on his cheekbone. She slid her hand up the side of his neck, palm flat, nails gently dragging along the back of his neck, and he felt hot, _was_ hot, the pink tint coloring his cheeks down through his chest making him look that much more inviting. Her lips pressed to the corner of his. Finally, her fingers in the space below his ear, brushing through his soft hair while her thumb traced his cheek. 

The anticipation she’d built for this moment did not leave him disappointed. She kissed him softly, her other hand making its way to mirror the position on the other side. Soft quickly moved to passionate, her tongue slipping between his lips and guiding him into a steady rhythm with her. He was already at a loss for her, willing to do anything to feel her touch, yet unable to find his voice to say the only word looping through his mind: _please_. Her kiss left him breathless, the softest little hum escaping his tingling lips when she leaned closer to him, his erection pressing hard between them and earning him an anticipatory moan as she gripped him again.

She helped him to adjust his legs so that she could straddle his hips. His legs were still bent, so she was hovering over his thighs at an angle. He kept his eyes on hers, silent save for his shaky breathing, even as she reached for him, guided just the tip of him into her. She rested her elbows on his shoulders, one hand gripping the back of his neck while the other carded through his curls. He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, fought himself to open them back up to watch her, intent on seeing her every facial expression, each miniscule shift in the tension of her eyebrows, any hint as to what was going through her head. 

With her elbows on his shoulders keeping her steady, she lowered herself down onto him gradually, sighing into his neck as she did. He sucked in a deep breath, chest shuddering as he looked into her eyes, desperate and acutely aware that he was left completely at her will. She made a show of it all, hips rising and falling so slowly, so _deliberately_. By now he knew exactly what she liked, knew that this was far from the pace that she normally took in a position like this. He kept his eyes on hers, barring the few times that they slipped shut. And she looked right back into his eyes.

What _was this?_ It all started as a punishment, was she trying to punish him with this creeping pace, with working her hips into the slowest rhythm he had ever been exposed to? If so, it wasn’t working _at all_. He was fairly certain he had never been so turned on, never been so consumed by anything in his life. He was surrounded by her, by her hands on his neck, in his hair, pulling herself closer to him. Her lips brushed against his, her breath falling in satisfied little gasps against his lips and _god_ , she tasted so good, a flavor so undeniably and indescribably _her_. He’d recognize it anywhere. She was his favorite flavor. 

He groaned at the loss as one of her hands strayed from its place, moving to the bed and seemingly searching for something. He scarcely remembered the vibrator, assumed she was grabbing that, but then her hand was winding behind his back, her rhythm interrupted as she shifted her focus. He realized she was working at his handcuffs before every bit of his concentration was lost to her grinding her body against his, shifting him just a little deeper inside of her. 

The cuffs jingled as she freed one of his hands. He pulled his hands in front of him, the cuffs dangling from his other wrist. He rubbed at his free wrist, looking down at it before staring up at her curiously. She unlocked the other cuff, taking them in her hands and tossing them to the side. He continued rubbing at his wrist, looking up at her and awaiting her next move. 

She took his wrist in her hands, rubbing gently at the marks the cuffs left there. They both gasped softly when she shifted in his lap, one of her hands reflexively clutching at his chest. She took a moment to steady her breathing, grinning at him as he chuckled at her. He wound his arms around her waist, his fingers tracing up her spine as they moved together. 

A breathy sound slipped out of his mouth, fingers twitching against her skin as he tried to keep his touch light. His eyes followed his hands as he touched her sides, watching as she slid through his fingers with each motion. His hands trailed up, just under her shoulder blades. He buried his face in her chest, adorning her skin with wet kisses. She returned her elbows to his shoulders, picking up her pace just enough to get Jake swearing under his breath. 

He worked with her to bring their bodies together, hands exploring her like he had all the time in the world. His hand followed the curve of her jaw, pulling her in and pressing his lips to hers almost cautiously. He pulled back, eyes trained on her face as he helped her to rock her body closer to his. He was toying with the idea of asking her for more, but he was losing himself in every slow stroke, electricity running through his skin under her touch. Before the words had an opportunity to make it past his lips, her tongue was on his. 

He sighed into the kiss, fingers knotting into her hair. Their tongues melded together, pushing for more of each other until they were both breathless, both clutching at one another desperately. By now, his hands on her hips were doing most of the work. Her little soft moans were growing more consistent, eyes clamped shut as he managed to satisfy her every need. 

“Jake—” She trailed off, losing her words as her grip on his shoulder tightened.

He whispered against her lips, hoping that the new name would give him a little bit of leverage. “You gonna come for me, babe?” 

She moved her hips more purposefully, anchoring herself to him with her hands clasped behind his neck. “ _Fuck_ —”

“That a yes?” He sighed into her neck, pressing rough kisses just underneath her jaw. When he kissed her again, he shifted so he could lean her back into the mattress without breaking their contact. 

She gasped as he pressed her into the mattress, his hips moving slow and steady, but _hard_. Her lips were trembling against his, whispers growing more frantic. “Right there—”

“Right there?” He whispered back, repeating the motion again. He slid his hand down her body, thumb rubbing slow, gentle circles.

“Right there, right— _oh_ , f—” She tipped her head back, breathing shakily as she arched toward him. “Yes, _please, ah—”_

“ _Fuck,_ you feel so—” He groaned into her neck. “So good, Ames, you’re so good.”

“Jake— _Jake_ ,” she sighed, nails digging into his lower back as she gave in, thighs shaking as he nursed her orgasm, his building with each passing second. 

She was still trembling, breath skittering against him. She propped herself up on an elbow, hand on the back of his neck to bring his ear to her lips. He was sighing into her neck before she even began her whispers. Her voice wavered, overcome with pleasure. “Please don’t stop—” She held his neck in place as she whispered in his ear, his responding thrusts causing her to cut off breathily for a moment. _”Fuck_ , you feel so good, just like that. Jake, please—” 

And _fuck_ , she was so hot, her voice breaking in all the right places and _god_ , he was so close and probably just a few seconds more of her voice in his ear and he would’ve been there, but what happened instead caught him entirely off guard. She used the hand on his neck to pull his face to hers, pressing her lips against his. It was nothing like the kisses she’d previously been requesting. It was soft, like her lips on his face, like the kisses she’d pressed against his jaw while he was still chained to his bed. Slow, like how she moved against him, like how she said his name before things had gotten so heated. 

All at once, everything came crashing down. He was pulling her closer, those final few thrusts erratic, her soft moans falling in the midst of a kiss that made no sense to him. She had never kissed him like that before. She had never looked into his eyes like that while they were doing this. He had fucked Amy Santiago dozens of times, but that is _not_ what this was. She was breaking a rule that she had explicitly set, doing it again even now as his thoughts attacked him. She pressed kisses against his throat, his chin, his lips, and he reciprocated. 

They stayed intertwined, dusting kisses across each other as they came down. He pulled out and she immediately shifted, not away, but _against him_. He trailed kisses up her spine, lips pulling into a smile as she hummed happily. He rested his chin on her shoulder, his arm winding around her waist. 

“That was…” 

_Different. Weird for them. Incredible._

“Yeah,” she whispered.

He’d been with a lot of girls. Okay, not a _ton_ , but enough. Enough to have seen some things, to have tried some things, to have done some things. He’d been in love, in what he really thought was real love, twice. 

He’d _never_ had sex like that before. 

He held her, fingers running through her hair. He looked at her curiously as she took his wrist into her hands, pulling it up to where she could inspect it. She thumbed softly over the indentations that her cuffs pressed into his skin. Then, so gently, she pressed her lips to his wrist. 

He felt safe with her. Even when he was cuffed, even when she had total control of him, he knew that he was in good hands. Safe hands. Her hands. She leaned her head forward, against his knuckles. He hadn’t recognized that she was upset, but he could feel that the shallow breaths she was taking were growing shakier. She pressed a kiss into his palm, leaning her forehead against his hand. 

“I think I should leave.”

He didn’t move, his hand still in hers, still touching her forehead. Her breath still tickled his wrist, still left him confused and unsure. Everything he was feeling was the opposite of what she was saying. “What?”

She shook her head, but didn’t say anything. 

“Stay.” The word hung in the air, silence suspending it there uncomfortably. Her words stung when she said them, but it hurt him just as much to ask her for this. She didn’t want to. He should’ve known. It was just sex. But it didn’t feel like just sex to him. It felt like everything he wanted, holding her there in bed. 

“I think…” She trailed off, her voice giving away a hint of emotion that he couldn’t quite identify. If she was hurt, why was she doing this? “I think I need to go.” 

“Ames…” He tried, his hand following the curve of her cheek. Her fingers moved to cover his. She pressed another gentle kiss against his palm. 

“I don’t know if we should do this anymore.” 

And it all made sense. 

This was goodbye. Something shifted between them, and he thought that it was because of their feelings, because of the feelings he’d been having that he had been stupid enough just now to think she reciprocated. The shift wasn’t because of those feelings, if she even had them at all. The shift was because she wanted to call it all off. She was apologizing. She was kissing him softly, breaking their rules because it was over, so it didn’t matter anymore. 

His hand was still pressed to her cheek, and he recoiled slowly. 

“Amy, no.” 

“Jake—”

“No.” He sat up, shrugging his shoulders at her. “No. Why?” He shook his head, pushing himself away from her to get a better look. He wrapped himself in his sheet, hiding his body from her. “Did I…” He glanced down at the bed, looked back at her face, a deep crease between his eyebrows. “Did I do something wrong?” 

She sat up, pulling the comforter up to cover herself, too. “Jake, no, it’s not—”

“Then what is it?” His eyes frantically traced over her face, searching for any kind of answer in her expression. “Is it just…?”

She was getting upset, emotional from a rush of endorphins, emotion that had been coursing through her during sex, the excess left over leaving her confused and she needed to be alone to process this, how was she supposed to figure this out with him sitting next to her, with his hands on her skin, in her hair, his lips on her forehead?

“Is it just me?” He finally finished, the vulnerability clear in his voice and on his face, though he wouldn’t look up at her.

“What? No— _No_ , Jake, I just…” She took a deep, shaky breath. “I need to be alone, I need—”

“It’s not just sex for me, Ames.” _Let it go_ , his brain screamed. But of course, he didn’t. He scoffed quietly, because this was stupid. So fucking what, this started as casual sex. Who said that’s all it could ever be? What if their relationship was evolving to be more than that? What if it was evolving into _real_ soft kisses and calling each other to hangout instead of just to fuck their feelings away? Into dinners in public where they both got dressed up so they could laugh at all the other people around them together? They could be more. It felt like more. And yeah, he’d been denying it for a long time, too. But he wanted more. He didn’t want to deny it anymore. And he was pretty sure that she wanted more, too.

She blinked at him. “What?”

“It’s not.” He shook his head, but he was looking down at his hands. “And I don’t think…” He paused, taking a moment to correct his breathing. _“That_ couldn’t have just been sex for you, either.” 

He finally, apprehensively, met her face with his eyes. She wasn’t sure what to say, wasn’t sure what to do. Her eyebrows pulled together, her head tilting to the side. 

“I have…” He took a deep, shaky breath. _“Feelings?_ For you? And I… Amy, look at me.” His voice broke a little. “Please.”

She took a deep breath. Her eyes flickered to his face, but when she recognized the emotion there, she looked back down at her hands. 

He was letting his emotion get the best of him, but he couldn’t help it. “Tell me it was just sex for you.” 

She opened her mouth, trying desperately to find words that she didn’t have. She hesitated, her mouth closing again. He shook his head at her. “Jake...”

 _“Amy.”_

“It was just sex for me.” She replied automatically, her voice void of all emotion.

“No.” He let out a breathy, disbelieving laugh. “Look at me and say it.” He pushed. He didn’t know why. To see if she could do it? To make it hurt more when she inevitably did?

Her eyes flashed to his face. His eyes were glistening, his eyebrows pulled together. He was hurt. He was hurt because of _her_. “It was just…” She swallowed back the lump in her throat. “It was just sex for me, Jake.”

He nodded. “Right.” He opened his mouth to speak, then cleared his throat instead. “Cool. Cool, cool, cool. Uh…” He smoothed his palms across the sheet, keeping his face down. “I think you were right. You should probably leave.”

She didn’t want to hurt him. She never meant to hurt him. She needed _time_ , he sprung all this on her and she wasn’t ready and she hadn’t been expecting it and she wasn’t sure, didn’t know how she felt, knew but didn’t know what to do about it and Jake was cornering her and telling her how he felt and demanding a response and… She was just looking at him, and he was looking down at his lap again, and he looked like he might cry and _god_ did she make him cry? He wasn’t crying, but he was going to. She was pretty sure he was going to.

“Jake—”

“Please.” His voice was soft, barely above a whisper, despondent. “Just go.” 

She nodded, swallowed her own tears that were threatening to make their presence known. She made her way to his dresser, quickly put on all of her clothes. She turned to look at him one final time when she made it to the door. She took a deep breath, unsure if she should apologize or simply leave. She decided that apologizing right now wouldn’t benefit anybody, so she turned to grab the doorknob. 

“Do me a favor.” His voice caught her attention. She stopped in place, turned slowly to face him. He was looking at the wall. “Next time you want just sex? Call somebody else.” 

He didn’t watch as she left the room without another word, leaving Jake alone in his bed. He heard his front door shut a minute later. He tipped back against his mattress, allowing all of the cold, empty feelings to eat at him. He didn’t cry. He wasn’t going to. But he was going to close his eyes and allow himself to sit in those feelings for a few minutes. 

It would be fine. It would be _fine._ He’d been rejected before. 

He’d never been rejected by his partner, who he’d have to face at work in just two short days. That was a new one. 

He’d also never been rejected by someone he’d been sleeping with, having sex _like that_ with, for months. He’d never been rejected by someone he deep down thought that maybe he actually had a chance with, not a chance of just, like, going on a date or something, but a chance of… _being something._ Something _real_.

Because as much as he tried to shove these feelings to the back of his mind… As much as he tried to pretend that there was nothing there, that he felt nothing, that he _saw_ nothing… It wasn’t true. He liked her, and while he hadn’t wanted to get his hopes up (for this _exact_ reason), he really thought that she felt something for him, too. 

But it was just sex for her. 

She was just another person that he’d stupidly given too much of himself to. Would he ever learn? His dad didn’t want him, his exes hadn’t wanted him, Amy didn’t want him either. He couldn’t blame them. Why would they? When people saw too much of him… they left. That’s how it had always been. And as great as his birthday had been, it turned out that this year was going to be just like every other one. 

He sighed to himself, finally sitting up and looking down at his bed. He collected all of the items there, the bottle of lube, the vibrator, her cuffs. He set the cuffs on his bedside table. She shouldn’t have left them, probably didn’t mean to. He would make sure to bring them to work. He brought the other items into the bathroom, intent on properly sanitizing like Amy had taught him when they’d first purchased the items together.

He’d asked her about sex toys once, if she uses any, started a fun conversation that made her face turn a really pretty shade of pink. _She_ surprised _him_ a week or two later when she brought it up again, suggesting that maybe they try some together. Cue the box. They went to a sex shop together, and she just smiled and shook her head at him when he made jokes about just about everything there, giving him an outlet for his quite obvious discomfort. She pulled him into the back area when nobody else was back there, and they picked out this vibrator together. They made rules for the box, like they did everything else. It would stay at his apartment, in his closet. They’d both added a few things since that first purchase. 

He went through the motions of cleaning it, glaring at the stupid thing as he did. Now he was, what? Just going to have a box full of sex toys he used to use with Amy? It’s not like he could bring them to work to give to her. _Yeah, hey everybody. Here’s this weird, not exactly inconspicuous box that I’m giving to Amy, save your questions til the end, please._ He didn’t assume she was planning on coming back anytime soon after what just happened.

He sighed. He’d take a shower and go to bed, and maybe everything would feel better in the morning. 

At least ~~her favorite~~ his blanket was in the dryer, warm and waiting for ~~her~~ him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is yet another chapter that had a lengthy Amy bit at the end, but it ended up getting chopped because it felt tacked on here. It will be present in the beginning of the next chapter. 
> 
> How are we feeling about the first real bit of conflict here? How are feeling for/about Jake? 
> 
> (I was gonna give a really mean, vague teaser about where Amy is headed at the end of this chapter, but I'll just let you guys think about that without any guide.) 
> 
> Next chapter is equal parts bad and good (unless I end up squeezing another chapter in due to the addition of Amy bit??? I'll keep you updated.)
> 
> ¨̮ love you guys. Hope you're staying safe and washing your hands.


	10. you know i'm stupid for you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a quickie. (the chapter, not the smut. plot twist: there is no smut)
> 
> Fear not! Next chapter DOES contain smut (and is completely finished except for editing and ONE scene—currently clocking in at 15k words to this chapter's 7k words. So look forward to that.)
> 
> Title from Stupid for You by Waterparks. 
> 
> _Hey, tell me what you want me to say._   
>  _You know I'm stupid for you._   
>  _Hey, can you come and come out and play?_   
>  _You know I'm stupid for you._

She was taking deep breaths. That same stupid triangle breathing, she thought. The thought exited her mind as quickly as it came to her, because all that she could think about was Jake. What had she just done?

She was driving, decidedly not home, but where was she even going? Not home was not enough information, especially not when she was on the verge of a breakdown like this. She needed to pull over so she could slam her fists on the steering wheel like she really wanted to, but she just kept driving. 

She didn’t know how she ended up at his apartment. She never made the decision to come there, but she figured there must be a reason why she was there. So she took another deep, shaky breath, and got out of her car. She walked up the familiar path to his door, allowing herself to pause, letting her emotions get the best of her because for the first time, it was really hitting her. She had ruined everything. 

She _always_ ruined everything. 

And it brought her here. 

The door opened up before she even knocked, a confused, “Amy?” coming from the other side as it swung open. 

She crashed into his arms, and he stumbled backwards, surprised, but welcoming. 

“Hey, hey, are you crying?” He rubbed his hand in circles on her back. “Hey, what’s going on?” 

She tried to steady her breathing as she pulled back to look at her older brother. She pressed the heel of her palm underneath her eyes, trying to dry some of her tears. “Benji, I…” She paused, shaking her head, losing her words to a sob. 

“Hey.” He put his hand behind her back, guiding her toward the kitchen. “C’mon. Let’s get you something to drink, you can tell me about it.” 

So she sat at her favorite brother’s kitchen table, staring into a cup of tea. Her stomach was twisted in knots, so she just stirred it around and avoided Benji’s eyes. 

“What’s up, Amy?”

She shook her head, feeling her eyebrows raise slightly. “Nothing.”

He made a face at her. “Amy. It’s…” He turned to catch the time on the stove. “11pm, and you just showed up to my house unannounced. Crying.” He pressed his hands against the table. “I’m pretty sure it’s not nothing.” 

She took a deep breath, trying to blink past the tears that were welling up again. She just kept picturing Jake’s face, his glistening eyes trained on her until she said words that she’d never be able to take back. Did she want to take them back? 

_It was just sex for me._

A blatant lie. She wished it were true, but that doesn’t mean it is. Her life would be so much _easier_ if sex with Jake was _just_ sex. Her feelings had been wrapped up in him for far longer than she was willing to admit. Of course she liked him. _Of course._

He was all heart, all the time. He makes her laugh, then makes her feel just as quickly. He pulls her against his chest, and everything else in the world just fades away. The moments she spends with him, be it next to him in the patrol car or across the desk from him, laughing on his couch or tucked into his side in bed, were some of her favorite moments. 

She couldn’t lose him. This man, who she never would have believed she’d feel more than a physical attraction to if you told her so a few months ago, meant way too much to her to risk it all over _feelings._

Feelings were messy. Feelings were unpredictable. They were hard, they were confusing, they were _scary_. And she knew from talking to him that he had just as hard of a time dealing with his emotions. They weren’t equipped to navigate something more serious with one another. And _then what?_ They lose each other completely?

She took a deep, shaky breath. Her thoughts were flying through her head almost faster than she could process them. She’d been there before. 

“Hey. _Hey._ ” He reached over to grab her arm. “Listen, the faster we get it all out in the open, the faster I can give you my awesome advice and solve all your problems.” She choked out a quiet laugh, and he smiled at her. “See, there we go. So what’s the problem?” He waited all of two seconds before pressing further. “Work? A friend? A boy?”

The tension between her eyebrows pulled even tighter. Jake was all three of those. The hand stirring her tea stilled, and he made a quiet sound of understanding. 

“What boy did this to you?” He knocked his knuckles against the table lightly. “You know I won’t beat him up, but Tony would. I can call him right now.” 

“Benji— _Benjamin_ ,” he stopped scrolling through his phone, looking up at her curiously. She sighed. “He didn’t do anything. It was me.” 

The corner of his mouth quirked up momentarily, and she rolled her eyes as he stifled a laugh. “I’m sorry, are you telling me that my _perfect_ sister messed something up?” 

_“Ha-ha,”_ she glared over at him, feeling a little more at ease at his teasing. 

“What happened?” 

So she detailed the general points of the story. Jake Peralta (though she didn’t actually mention his name), how they met, how they came to know each other. She skipped over the details (even her favorite brother would have a field day with the Christmas party car story). She talked about how they became partners (breezing over the part where she’d transferred precincts, a fact which her family was still unaware of), how they became friends, how she had been falling for him, and how a relationship with him would ruin everything. He listened intently, chiming in here and there. 

“It’s nice in theory, ya’know? But it’s all going to blow up in the end, and his friendship… He’s too important to me to lose it all. But that’s what always happens. It’s what happened with Teddy. It’s what happened when—”

“Hold on. You can’t base everything off of what happened with _Teddy_. Teddy isn’t the foundation for every adult relationship you have.” 

“No, but what’s the difference?” She pulled her knees up to her chest, tracing at the stitching of the seam of her jeans. “We work together, just like Teddy and I did. And now Teddy’s around all the time—I just saw him like two weeks ago. And it’s awkward and uncomfortable and our breakup sucked and…”

“He’s a different guy, Amy.” 

“But I made the mistake of dating a cop once already. And what if it interferes with all of my plans? You know Dad would never let me hear the end of it if—”

“Amy, c’mon. It doesn’t matter what Dad thinks. You make your own plans. And if this guy is going to interfere with what you really want, then don’t date him. But don’t say it’s because things are definitely going to end the way they did with Teddy. Things ended the way they did with Teddy because the relationship was you and Teddy. If you date this guy and it ends, it might not be the same.”

“But it could be.” 

“Yeah, or it could be better.” He tilted his head at her, like she had no choice but to accept this response. 

“Yeah.” She nodded. “Or it could be worse.” 

Benji gestured at her with his hands.. “Look, I don’t think it’s necessarily all going to go up in flames if you date the guy. It sounds like you’re really into him. If you don’t give yourself a chance, you won’t ever know for sure if it’ll be different.” He raised his eyebrows at her, and it was like she could see the annoying, hopeless romantic side of him peeking out. “What if this guy’s your future husband, Amy?”

Her eyebrows pulled together again, unwelcome thoughts of such an _insane_ scenario flashing through her mind. Jake, smiling at her at the end of the aisle, those same glistening eyes she looked into earlier, but accompanied by a smile. She scoffed. “That’s ridiculous, Benj.”

He shrugged his shoulders. “I think you have to figure out what’s the most important to you.” He shrugged again. “A guy you met last October, or the career you’ve been working toward your whole life? And then you have to really take the time to figure out if you can make both work because…” He trailed off for a moment. “You know, there have been some really hard times between me and Emma, but I can’t imagine a life where I didn’t ask her to be my wife. And time’s certainly a factor, but just because you met him less than a year ago, doesn’t mean he’s not,” he paused, making a face at her to show that he knew the phrase would make her cringe, _“the one.”_

She ignored his final comment and took a deep breath, trying to shove away the emotion creeping back up in her. She cleared her throat. “Where is Emma, by the way?” 

“Still on the book tour for another week. Kids are sleeping, which is why I’m so glad I caught you at the door before you knocked. You know they never would’ve gone back to sleep if they woke up and saw you.” She smiled, then looked back down into her teacup, a few sips missing now. “But don’t change the subject, Amy. In eight years, when you’re the youngest Captain in NYPD history… Will you be thinking about this man and wishing you had done things differently? I know my job is way different from yours, but I know that every achievement I’ve ever made wouldn’t mean half as much if I didn’t get to come home and share it with her.”

She sighed, leaning back to stare at the ceiling. “What if the way I feel now changes? What if we’re too different and we grow apart, just like Teddy and I did?” 

“Amy, Teddy was boring. Is this guy boring?” He laughed when she rolled her eyes. “From what you’ve told me about him so far, I’m gonna say he’s not. So being different doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Being different doesn’t mean you’re gonna grow apart.” 

She smiled weakly, glancing over at him. Maybe he was right. “I guess I’m just scared. You know, if we date and something goes wrong, we might not even be talking in eight years. If we just stay friends, he’ll still be in my life.”

Benji sighed. “It sounds like you’re kind of already more than just friends, though, huh?” 

They were interrupted by her three-year-old niece walking into the room, much to Benji’s dismay. If she were being honest, she felt a lot better after curling up on the couch snuggling her niece until she fell back asleep. When they got her back in bed, Amy beelined for the door, trying her hardest not to extend her brother’s night anymore than she already had. 

He leaned on the doorframe as she stepped out onto the porch. “It’s gonna be okay, Amy. You just need to take some time to figure it all out. And you can call me if you need anything.” 

She thanked him again, feeling just a little better as she stepped out into the night. 

“Oh, and would you schedule something with your brothers, please? Mom’s been bugging me about getting you to come over with everybody.” 

She laughed. “Goodnight, Benj.”

“Night, dummy.”

The contentedness faded away from her with each mile that she drove away from Benji. Her thoughts were pulled back to Jake, to the look on his face when she told him that it was nothing more than sex to her. 

It didn’t even matter what she thought now (what did she think, anyway?). Things were already over between them. She’d already hurt him. She couldn’t take it back. 

She always wrecked the best things before they had a chance to grow. Now she needed to try to salvage the pieces of their friendship before she lost that, too.

She was just minding her own fucking business when Jake Peralta bumped into her, with hands too strong as they steadied her hips, eyes too sparkly as he briefed her on a silly bet he’d made with his friend. She never asked to have feelings for him. 

He wasn’t a part of her carefully cultivated plans. She had taken having a partner out of her plans completely when her last relationship imploded. It had taken a lot of time and a lot of configuring, and she couldn’t just throw that all away because she’d met some goofy guy who made her stomach twist in knots, her heart beat louder than was probably healthy. 

_But she wanted to._

She wanted to throw it all away. She wanted _him_. She wanted to talk to somebody about all of this, and the person she wanted to talk to wasn’t Benji. It wasn’t a family member, or a friend, or a fucking therapist, or anybody but _him._

She wanted to talk to Jake. 

She was exhausted when she finally got back to her apartment. She sauntered over to her bed without even taking off her makeup. 

She couldn’t bother him tonight. She’d put him through enough. 

She would give him a few days, let everything settle between them. She’d talk to him at work. Maybe she’d have some big breakthrough between now and then, and she’d suddenly know exactly what to do. 

Wishful thinking, she knew. 

She would talk to him, one way or another, and things would be okay between them. Maybe they wouldn’t be _together_ , but they could at least be friends. 

They _would_ still be friends. 

Maybe it was a little bit selfish, but she wasn’t going to lose Jake. 

He just needed a little bit of time. 

—

Plot twist! 

Things did _not_ feel better the next morning. Things didn’t feel better when he turned Die Hard on, things didn’t feel better when he got drunk by himself at noon, things didn’t feel better when he ordered a whole pizza from Sal’s. Things _definitely_ didn’t feel better when he thought about her, which he apparently _couldn’t_ stop doing. 

He did used to think about other things, right? That wasn’t just a weird, distant memory that he’d made up? There was actually a time when the passing thoughts in his head were about her, breaking up the regular, the mundane, the typical ins and outs of his days, not the other way around? 

Based on the way that she consumed all of his thoughts now, he wasn’t entirely sure. But all the same, _today_ wouldn’t be like yesterday. He toweled off, wiping the steam off of the mirror to stare at his face. He looked tired, but all in all he didn’t look too bad, considering the dull hangover that was tugging at his brain. 

He checked his phone as he got dressed, shoving away the reflexive _she really isn’t gonna call, huh?_ and trying to move on with his day. He’d spent enough time dwelling on that thought the day before, and like he said: _today would be different._

 _Today_ it was already 1pm and he _wasn’t_ drunk. He scrolled through his contacts, quickly finding Rosa’s name. 

**Jake Peralta:** drinks????

So… yeah, he was gonna get drunk… But at least he wasn’t going to do it alone. Hopefully. If she was busy, he actually might still just do it alone. 

**Diaz:** Shaw’s at 4?

Nope, that wasn’t gonna work. Shaw’s was _their_ place. The squad’s. And Amy was, unavoidably so, part of the squad. 

**Jake Peralta:** can’t do shaws. explain later. I’ll b at that place on bedford at 2

The little gray dots appeared at the bottom of his screen before he had time to set the phone down.

 **Diaz:** uh oh. Early day?

He frowned. If there was anything Gina had taught him, it was that you _don’t_ leave a paper trail. Especially not about stuff like this. Stuff like… _feelings_ and things that matter and things that could definitely be used against you one day, probably. He didn’t want to text _anyone_ about this, least of all Rosa. Also, more importantly, he was all too aware that there was a chance she’d completely refuse to come hang out if she knew he was about to hold her hostage to hint at feelings that he wasn’t even going to come right out to talk about. 

**Diaz:** see you then. 

Cool. He should’ve known that he could count on her to disconnect and just drink in silence with him. 

Fast forward an hour, three drinks, and a misplaced sense of disarmament. 

“So what’s the deal, Peralta?” 

She avoided looking at him as she asked the question, but she _definitely_ asked the question. And he _definitely_ hadn’t been prepared for it.

“What?” 

Her eyes flashed over to him, eyebrows pinching together in a disapproving way before she rolled her eyes at him. “You’re a talker.” 

He raised an eyebrow, now even more confused than before. “What are you talking about?” 

“Do I have to spell everything out for you?” She rolled her eyes again, then took a long drink of her beer. She set the bottle down with a loud _clink_ , then turned her attention back to him. “Something’s obviously wrong. And you’re not a _drink in silence_ guy when you have a problem. You’re a talker.” She crossed her arms. “So talk.” 

He scrunched his eyebrows up, then took a drink to avoid talking to her. He flagged down a bartender. “Yeah, can I get another round for the table, please? Great, thanks.” 

He apprehensively glanced back over at her, finding her usual, unreadable expression in place. She sighed. “It’s Santiago, right?” 

He ignored her, twisting at the empty bottle in front of him—just anything to do with his hands. An uncomfortable silence fell between them. He glanced up at her a few times, shying away when he found her gaze unwavering, his attention shooting back to the empty bottle in his hands. The bartender came and dropped off two new bottles for them. He thanked her quietly, then returned his attention to his hands, to the condensation slipping down the edge of the full bottle he now gripped. 

“You really don’t want to talk about it?” 

He kept his eyes down. “You don’t want to hear about it.” 

She huffed quietly. “Look, Jake. I’m offering to talk about it with you right now. You don’t make me talk when I’m upset.”

“Exactly.”

“Because you’re a good friend.” He looked up at her. “And you know that’s what I need when I’m upset. _You…_ need to talk. So talk.” 

He nodded slowly. He took a sip of his drink, giving himself a moment to collect his thoughts. 

“How’d you know it was about her?” 

Rosa shrugged. “You didn’t want to go to Shaw’s. You only _ever_ want to go to Shaw’s. So I figured it was either something about Shaw’s or about someone who goes to Shaw’s. Only people you interact with at Shaw’s are us. It wasn’t me. You and Gina argue all the time, but it’s never that serious. Charles is out of town this weekend for that food convention.” She paused for a moment. “And you two aren’t _that_ sneaky.” 

He twisted his head to the side. “What do you mean we’re not that sneaky?” 

Rosa laughed, a short, quiet sound. “You and Amy. I see you two looking at each other at work. At first I really just chalked it up to some weird partner thing you two had—I’ve been partners with both of you, and you’re both weird. Didn’t seem too far off.” She took another long swig of her drink. “But then you started doing that weird pinky thing when you _thought_ no one was watching.” This shrug was more nonchalant than the others. “But I see everything.” 

Jake tried to shrug away the uneasy feeling that her tone in the final sentence gave him, then he raised his eyebrows at her. “Does everyone else know?” 

Rosa drummed her fingers on the table. “You know Charles always talks, but I don’t think he actually _knows_. Then Gina knows. She caught me making a face the last time you did the pinky thing—which, by the way, is weird—and brought it up. She wouldn’t give me her source, but I just assumed you told her.” 

“You’re a pretty good detective, Diaz.” He laughed, sounding much more amused than he actually was, and took another drink.

“You’re pretty predictable, Peralta.” 

He made a face at her. “Hey! I am not.” 

She stared pointedly at him. “C’mon. That night at Shaw’s? You were totally already into her.”

He quieted, unsure if she was going to mention knowing anything else about that night. Amy’s hand creeping up his thigh, the hand-dryer breaking up their drunken sex. He _was_ already into her at that point. What Rosa apparently didn’t know was that at that point, they’d already been sleeping together for over a month. His voice grew weaker. “You don’t know _everything_ about me.” 

She shrugged him off, and the silence blanketed them again. Her face was a clear prompt for him to start talking about whatever was on his mind. He sighed, his focus going back to the wood grain in the table. “She just doesn’t like me. Ya’know, like, romantic stylez.” 

Rosa rolled her eyes. “She doesn’t like you?” Jake nodded, his somber eyes still set down. “What makes you say that?” 

“Well, she said it, for starters.” 

Rosa raised her eyebrows. _“Amy_ said she didn’t like you?” 

His lips tensed in the corner as he thought. “I mean, those weren’t her exact words, I guess.” 

Rosa nodded. “Right. Maybe you misinterpreted?”

Jake laughed. His voice was dark, disappointed. “Yeah, I don’t think I misinterpreted at all.” Rosa waited patiently, and he let out a heavy sigh before he explained. “I told her I had feelings for her and…” He slumped over a bit, began picking at the label on his bottle. “She said it was just sex for her.” 

If Rosa had any sort of reaction to that, she definitely didn’t make it apparent to Jake. He watched for even the tiniest change in her demeanor, but there was nothing. But then she was waving over the bartender, quietly ordering a round of shots for them at a quarter to four. He wasn’t sure what he expected when he asked Rosa to come, but he was really glad that he had. 

“That sucks, Jake.” 

His lips turned up into a sad smile, and he nodded. “Yeah. But it’ll be okay.” 

Rosa opened her mouth to say something, but then her attention was caught behind him. He turned to follow her gaze. 

“Is that Gina?” 

Jake laughed when Gina’s eyes met theirs across the bar. She looked like she had been caught in the act of doing something she really didn’t want to get caught doing. She was seated across from a man that Jake didn’t recognize. Her eyes flickered back to the man, clearly flustered. 

“You think she’s on a date?” Jake shot back to Rosa without turning to face her. 

“Looks like—” She trailed off when Gina pushed her chair back and stood up. “Is she coming over here?” 

“What are you dummies doing here? And where’s my invite, by the way?” 

Rosa laughed. Gina’s eyes widened when the bartender came by and dropped off three shots. “Avoiding Amy,” Rosa replied. 

“We are _not.”_ Jake rolled his eyes. 

“Forgetting about Amy,” Rosa retorted. 

“Amy who?” Gina straight-faced the comment, swiping one of the shots and taking it before anyone had a chance to comment on it. 

Jake scoffed quietly. Like he could just forget about Amy. As if his life could be that simple. He followed Gina’s lead and took a shot.

Rosa pushed the final shot toward him. “All three were for you.” 

He raised his eyebrows, but silently cheersed as he accepted the other shot. 

“Damn. Three shots at 4pm? What’d your girl do, Jakey?” 

“Not my girl,” he begrudgingly mumbled. “And aren’t you on a date or something?”

She shrugged, and they all glanced back to where the man she left was still looking confused at the table. “He’s talked about his cat like seven times in the last twenty minutes.” 

“Wow,” Rosa commented. “And you even brought him somewhere nice. Should’ve just brought him to Shaw’s.”

Gina scoffed. “C’mon. A date at _Shaw’s?_ What do you think I am, some kind of animal?”

Jake made a face at her. “I’ve brought dates to Shaw’s.” 

Gina shook her head. “I’ve learned a few things from you over the years, Jake. Date etiquette is not one of those things. You’re a terrible date.”

“I am _not_. Rosa, back me up!”

Rosa pursed her lips. “I mean, there was that vending machine date.”

“A cheap date does not make a bad date!” 

“Maybe that’s why Amy won’t date you.”

“Wait… Amy won’t date you? You asked Amy out? What else have I missed?” Gina looped around the side of the table, sliding into the booth next to Rosa.

Jake groaned. “I didn’t ask Amy out, and, _by the way_ , I would take Amy on a _great_ date. If she would date me. Which she won’t, because she doesn’t like me, and I need another shot.” 

“Amy doesn’t like you?” Gina sounded incredulous. “Please. That girl likes you, Jake. Written all over her face.” 

Rosa stared at Gina in a way that clearly meant _shut up._ Gina just shrugged. 

“Well, that’s not what she told me last night.” 

“Title of your sex tape,” Gina tacked on to his sentence, a bored smirk on her lips. 

“Is this what it’s like for you guys when I make those jokes? Should I stop?” Gina and Rosa both made noncommittal noises. Jake finished off his fourth beer. “I just…” He sighed. “I really like her.” He nodded, his eyes slowly coming up to look at his friends. “I really like her a lot.” 

Rosa passed him her half-finished beer. He laughed, but accepted it. He was drinking pretty quickly, but he wasn’t going to complain. 

“Maybe you just need to try and move on with somebody else.” Rosa suggested it softly, like she wasn’t quite sure it was the answer. “If Amy doesn’t want to be with you… What else can you do?” 

Gina pulled out her phone. “I could have ten different girls here in the next twenty minutes. Take your pick.” She set the phone down in front of him, a facebook profile picture open for him to look at. 

He glanced down at the picture. Some girl that wasn’t Amy. He slid the phone back toward her. “Actually, I think I’m just gonna hang around here for a few more hours and then I’m just gonna head home.” Gina slid the phone back toward him. He clasped his hand over hers, stopping her. “Alone.” 

“Lame,” she murmured. 

“I know what’ll make you feel better,” Rosa offered after a short bout of silence. Jake raised his eyebrows at her. “Getting your ass kicked in pool.” 

“You _wish_ ,” he retorted, getting a head start on his way to the table. 

The three of them spent the rest of the day beating each other in the various games at the back of the bar. At one point, Gina held the jukebox hostage, forcing everyone to listen to 90s hits—which Jake didn’t even try to pretend bothered him. This day, luckily, was nothing like the day before. He spent hours shooting loving, teasing remarks back and forth between his friends, and they shuffled into the back of a cab with him at the end of the night. He was distracted, he was grateful, and he was _happy._

Amy had actually slipped his mind completely until Rosa and Gina helped him up the steps to his door that night. Gina sat on the edge of his bed as she helped him into it, Rosa smirking at him from the other side. 

“I miss her,” he slurred quietly. 

Gina pressed her palm to his cheek, and he closed his eyes and leaned into the contact. “I know.” Then she gently smacked his sheek, twice in succession. “Cheer up, buttercup. Lots of fish in the sea.” 

He murmured a soft whine. “Fishes are icky.” 

“Night, Jake.” Rosa sounded further away, but he didn’t open his eyes to check. The room was spinning enough with his eyes _closed_. He didn’t need to add vision into the mix.

He hummed quietly. “Love you guys.” It came out jumbled, but he didn’t care enough to correct himself. 

“Love you, idiot.”

“Love you, Jake.” 

He smiled to himself as he fell asleep, and he knew for sure that no matter what happened next, everything would be okay for him. He had really great friends, he had a kickass job, and he was _Jake Peralta_. John McClane of the NYPD, right? A little rejection had never gotten him down before, and he would be just fine through it this time, too. 

The next morning, he felt significantly less fine. To be fair, it had a lot more to do with the pounding in his head than the pounding in his heart, but it made rolling out of bed—a task that was already difficult—that much harder for him. 

He groaned and grumbled through his morning routine, managing to shower so that he at least looked halfway like a functioning human. He took more painkillers than was probably healthy on an empty stomach, not even flinching when his too-hot coffee washed them down. 

He could tell when he sat down across from Amy that she had been preparing herself to speak to him. He imagined the file on her computer, a neat, bulleted list of all of the important points. When she looked up at his current state, a range of emotions flashed across her face before she finally landed on confusion. Jake’s hangover enters the chat, Amy’s certainty darts for the door. 

He tried to keep his eyes away from her, reverting back to glancing at Gina or Rosa for back-up, but after about the seventh time, they ignored him altogether. Charles was there and willing to chat, but the one time he walked over and initiated a conversation, he pulled up pictures from the food convention that made his stomach turn _and_ he talked so loudly and excitedly that his headache, which had been brought down to a dull level, was now pounding again. 

He was trying his hardest to focus on work, but _god_ , that headache was really getting in the way of things. It was practically a gift when he realized he needed a file from the evidence lock-up. He’d have a chance to stand around in a dimly lit room and just sit in silence for a few minutes before he actually began looking for the file. 

He was fully aware that her attention was on him as he made his way toward the evidence room, and when he just barely caught her standing up in his peripheral vision, he was sure that she was going to follow him. He was surprised, then, when she never showed up. 

Which was fine. _Good._ Not disappointing at all that she hadn’t tried to talk to him, not even once. He needed the extra time to give his brain a break, anyway. He was leaning against one of the shelves, his thumbs rubbing at his temples with his eyes clamped shut. A few minutes to himself was exactly what he needed. 

“Are you okay?” 

He jumped when he heard her voice, bumping further back against the shelf. The box above him fell, narrowly missing his head and instead hitting him on the shoulder. He grabbed his shoulder, wincing and hissing out a, “God— _fuck.”_ Her hand clapped over her mouth, eyes wide as she looked at him. 

“I’m _so_ sorry, Jake. I didn’t mean to scare you.” 

“You didn’t scare me—”

“Let me—”

“Don’t—”

She backed up, her palm facing him as a gesture of innocence. Her other hand contained a coffee mug—the reason she hadn’t immediately followed him. 

“I’m sorry.” 

“It’s fine, Ames.” He rubbed at his shoulder, then bent down to pick up the box. He turned away from her to put the box back in its place, then tried to brush some of the dust off of him. 

“I, uh… got this for you?” She extended her hand with the mug forward. He assessed her warily, eyes flashing between the cup and her face, before gratefully accepting it. “You look—”

“Like shit?” She raised her eyebrows, but he just laughed quietly. “Hangover.” 

She nodded. He watched as she twisted her fingers, and he was already starting the countdown in his head. How many seconds until whatever she wanted to say burst out of her? His bet was on three. She looked down at the floor. 3… 2… 1—

“Look, Jake… I just really wanted to talk to you. About… ya’know. Everything.” 

He nodded. He didn’t want to frown, knew it wouldn’t be a good moment to crack some kind of joke, so instead, he took a sip of coffee. 

“I…” She sighed, her shoulders slumping a little as she tried to find the right words. “I’m not sure… I don’t want you to think—”

“Ames,” he interrupted. “It’s fine. Whatever it is. Just say it.” 

Her eyebrows pulled together, but she nodded. “I’m really sorry about the other night. I didn’t mean to…” She shook her head. “I didn’t want to hurt you, if that’s what I did. You know, that wasn’t my intention. I hope you know that.” 

He nodded, then redirected his attention to the coffee in his cup. He’d been drinking it darker than this lately. 

“It’s not you.” She continued, and he tore his eyes away from the too-light coffee to regard her. “Like you said. It isn’t…” She was bending her index finger back in a way that looked uncomfortable. He resisted the urge to lace his fingers with hers to stop her. She swallowed. “I, uh… I have a new rule. No dating cops.” 

His voice was a little higher than he’d like. “Oh. Cool, cool. Yeah, I actually have that same rule. No more cops.” 

“Oh, you’ve dated a cop?” 

“What? No, uh. I’m… This coffee is really good, just from the break room?”

She raised her eyebrows at him, pushing forward with the conversation. “You know, with everything that happened with Teddy… I have another precinct that feels like a home now. And I don’t want to jeopardize that. For either of us.” 

“Right. Yeah, of course. That makes sense.” What he _didn’t_ get… was why sleeping with him didn’t jeopardize that for them, but anything more than that _did_. He couldn’t find it in himself to ask her that, so he just nodded in a way that felt pretty stupid to him. Also… Did this mean that it _wasn’t_ just sex for her? It wasn’t that she didn’t like him, it was just that there was a rule standing between them? And would that make him feel better, or worse?

“So… Are we okay?” 

He nodded slowly. “Yeah. We’re okay.” He smiled, not quite weak, but it definitely didn’t reach his eyes. “Partners.” 

She nodded back, but something was clearly still bothering her. He waited patiently for her to voice her concerns. “And as far as our arrangement… Do you want to… stop?” 

He sighed. He supposed he should’ve known a question like this was coming. “I think maybe that’s best…” 

She raised her eyebrows. “Oh. Yeah! Of course, that makes sense. Of course we would stop.”

“I just need some space, Ames.” He shifted his weight uncomfortably. “Like, work is fine, but aside from that… I just don’t know if I can be around you right now.” 

She frowned, but he got the idea that she hadn’t intended to. “Why?” She shook her head at herself, like that was a stupid question. They both knew why. He had feelings, and whether she had a rule about cops or not, those feelings hadn’t changed in the past two days. 

“Because when I’m with you, I forget.” 

“Forget what?” 

“What it’s like when you leave.” He shook his head, slower than felt natural. He was reminded of the swaying of windshield wipers, but no matter how much he shook his head, the windshield that was their relationship remained blurry. “And you always leave. Which is fine. It’s what we do. I tease you, you shut me up, we fuck, you leave.” 

He shrugged, appearing more nonchalant than he had a moment before. He opened his mouth, then hesitated, frowning as he closed his mouth again. His jaw flexed, and she watched, giving attention to every single detail of his face. 

“The thing is…” He looked at her for a moment, then immediately looked back down at the floor. “That just isn’t what I want right now.”

She opened her mouth to speak, then shut it again. Amy Santiago, at a loss for words. A sight he’d have to remember, because it didn’t happen often. 

“So maybe we put the arrangement on pause.” 

“On pause?” She looked even more confused than before. “Instead of stopping?” 

He shrugged. “I don’t know… I mean, I’m not opposed to doing it again—not _doing it_ , but the arrangement, you know. Which, I guess… is doing it.” He shook his head, flustered. “Sorry, I—”

“Jake,” she said softly, a smile across her lips. God, he wished it didn’t make him feel so at ease to see it. “It’s fine.” 

“Uh, so…” He trailed off. “I have a colleague at another precinct that I work with from time to time. I still want to be partners with you, of course. If that’s, ya’know, fine with you. But that other detective texted me about a case. I was thinking maybe I’d talk to Holt and jump on that case. Ya’know, give us a little bit of distance for a week or two?” 

“Oh. Yeah. If that’s what you want to do, yeah.” 

He smiled tightly. It wasn’t what he wanted to do. What he _wanted_ to do was kiss her. A lot. But he wouldn’t. “Thank you, Amy.” He shook his head at himself. “For being understanding about all of this.” 

She laughed. “This is new for both of us. I guess we just have to figure out what works together.” She smiled at him, but he hung his head a bit as he looked back to the floor. 

"And I'm sorry."

She was quiet, so he looked back up at her. 

"For what?"

He cleared his throat. "Messing this all up." She shook her head at him, and he stopped her before she could defend him. "I know, I know. But I'm still sorry."

She smiled, a bit sad. "Me too." They stayed that way a moment, just looking at each other. She extended her hand toward him. "So, see you around?” 

He laughed quietly, but accepted her handshake. “Yeah. I’ll see you.” 

And for all of seven seconds, he felt a lot better. 

Then he realized, with absolute certainty, that he was an idiot.

Why would he even suggest that they should continue this arrangement in the future? He knew damn well that he wasn’t going to get over her probably _ever_ , but definitely not if he was still sleeping with her. Was he so consumed by keeping her in his life, by keeping that little bit of intimacy between them, that he would knowingly put himself in that position? Was it that he could hear in her voice how much _let’s stop_ wasn’t what she wanted to hear? Would he just do anything to make her happy?

He knew exactly how this was going to end. They’d keep this up until his stupid crush turned into something more, and _then what?_ It’s not like he could take it all back. He couldn’t wait until they were sleeping together again, then take back all those moments. He couldn’t have those moments with her and not get more attached than he already was. 

All he’d done is ensure that he’s either going to fall harder for her, or have to initiate another uncomfortable discussion about this in the future. He didn’t want to have that discussion. He didn’t want to fall harder for her, knowing all too well that there was nothing to stop him from hitting the ground. 

Suddenly, something occurred to him. Rosa, passing a beer to him across the table yesterday. 

_Maybe you just need to try and move on with somebody else._

That didn’t sound like a good option, either. But it sounded a lot better than falling hopelessly in love with someone who would never return his feelings (he _wasn’t_ in love with her, but that’s clearly where this was headed). Starting a conversation with _Ames, I have to talk to you… I actually met somebody_ sounded way easier than looking at her and lying through his teeth saying that he didn’t want to be with her in any capacity. 

He needed to move on. It would be good for him. And isn’t that what friends wanted for each other, anyway? If she didn’t have feelings for him like that… If there was no chance that they’d ever be more than friends… Then why shouldn’t he move on with someone else?

He definitely wasn’t going to jump into anything, but he would at least allow himself to be open to the possibility. It would take a little time, but he would get past his feelings for her. It would be good for both of them. He didn’t want to be like Teddy, hopelessly pushing for a relationship that would never happen. He didn’t want to make her uncomfortable. He wanted both of them to be happy. 

And clearly pursuing something with her wasn’t the way to achieve that. 

He smiled over at her as he settled back into his desk. He’d confirmed with Holt that he had the freedom to assist on a case at the seven-two. A little space would give him the clarity that he needed. 

This was for the best. 

Maybe if he kept telling himself that, he’d actually start to believe it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said, next chapter there WILL be smut. 
> 
> And it's not like I would write a smut scene between two characters that WEREN'T Jake & Amy... Right?
> 
> _RIGHT?!_


	11. you know my skin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> this chapter summary is just the eyeballs emoji. like four eyeball emojis. 
> 
> Also, a side-note! Virginity is a social construct and is stupid as hell it lit rally does not matter even a little bit. In case that ever comes up or anything. ¨̮

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another Waterparks title! From I Felt Younger When We Met. 
> 
> _Do you see?_   
>  _You're the reason I can't sleep._   
>  _Lose it where your head should be._   
>  _In the dark between my sheets._
> 
> _I said I love you to death,_   
>  _So I must be dead._   
>  _It makes me sick you know my skin,_   
>  _My sins are all built in._   
>  _You know, so I must be dead._   
>  _It makes me sick you know my skin,_   
>  _My freckles and my hands, you know._

He had halfway convinced himself that getting with somebody else would help him to get over Amy, but the way things looked right now, he wasn’t so sure. 

This was a mistake. It had to be. When was the last time he was _this_ nervous? Over Amy, sure, but over a date? Gina didn’t know what she was talking about, he was a _great_ date. So he had nothing to be worried about. 

Except, maybe, Amy finding out. 

Not that it should matter! They weren’t dating. She made that abundantly clear. So he should be free to date whomever he chooses. He was pretty sure he used whomever correctly. Amy would be proud. 

_Ugh._

The week and a half away from her had served him _some_ good. He didn’t think about her quite as frequently with her not sitting opposite him each day. Of course _this_ moment, now that he had something to be stressed about, she was the only thing on his mind. 

Stupid Amy. With her stupid, pretty eyes and her stupid, smart brain and her stupid, cute laugh. And her stupid, _stupid_ rules.

“Hey, man! It’s gonna be fine. My sister’s great, I think you’ll really like her.” 

Jake nodded, ran his fingers through his hair, then rubbed the back of his neck. He hesitated as they began walking up the walkway, looking at the house uncomfortably. The invitation came up every time he collaborated with the seven-two. His buddy always badgered him about _you’re still single? So is my sister, Peralta!_ Jake had never really been one for blind dates, so he always refused. He figured if he was ever going to try it, now was the time. A blind date would take all the guesswork out of it. He wouldn’t have to focus on all the features that weren’t Amy’s when he was flirting with some girl at a bar. He’d just be dropped right in front of someone, and he’d make it work. He was good at thinking on his feet. 

“Hey, Peralta. You okay?” 

He nodded again. “Just a little nervous. I haven’t really been on a date in a while.”

David raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were seeing someone last time you came by the precinct?” 

Jake nodded slowly, reflecting back on that moment. The last time the offer was made, a few months earlier, he _thought_ he was pursuing something with Amy. “Yeah, I was. Turns out it was just a little more casual than I’d previously thought.” 

David clicked his tongue, shaking his head sadly. “I get it, man.” He clapped his hand on Jake’s shoulder, a gesture of comfort. “I really think this is going to be a good thing, though. Plus, this isn’t even _technically_ a date. It’s a family get together. C’mon.” 

He reached forward, grabbing the door handle.

“Wait, a family get together?” 

David turned back to look at him, looking some combination of apathetic and annoyed. “Yeah. A family get together. Look, my sister wouldn’t just _agree_ to going on a date with some guy she didn’t know. So your date is going to be here. With my sister, my brothers, my parents, and me.”

With that, David turned and opened the door, quickly coming through and loudly announcing Jake’s arrival before he had the opportunity to run like he wanted to. He was taking every opportunity to glare a hole through David’s head until he walked through the door, greeted happily by _so. many. people._

The only woman in the house ran to greet him, leaning in to hug him a little too tight. 

“You must be Jake! It’s so nice to meet you. We’re so glad you decided to come! David has told us so much about you!”

Jake looked to David with concerned eyes, wondering what exactly _that_ meant. An older man stepped forward and extended his hand for him to shake, which he accepted easily. 

“Victor,” the man said. “This is my wife, Camila.” 

“So nice to meet you!” Jake replied, already spreading on the charm way too thick. 

There were men sitting close by, all seated in various ways around the living room, eyes all trained on the newcomer. 

“My brothers,” David began. He pointed to them all as he went. “Over there on the floor, that’s Julian and Mateo.”

“Hey,” Mateo shouted. Julian gave a half-hearted wave before looking back down at his phone. 

“Twins,” David continued, earning an eye roll from Mateo. “On the couch—Eli, Tony, Benji.”

“Nice to meet you, Jake!” Benji waved from across the room. Eli and Tony appeared to be arguing about something, both looking at him and then whispering to each other. “Shut up,” Benji elbowed at one of his brothers, sending Jake an awkward shrug. 

“Finally, Lucas—”

 _“Luke,”_ he interrupted. “The _best_ Santiago brother.” 

It seemed that this was a touchy subject, because though all six of the men in the living room were adults, they all began squabbling amongst themselves. Jake was glancing around the room, overwhelmed (that was an understatement) by the situation that he had _no idea_ he was walking into. 

Something felt so strange about all of this, but when he tried to place exactly what it was, he realized that _all of it_ was strange to him. He’d never really _had_ a family, not one like this, at least. He loved his mom more than anything, and he was so grateful that she did everything she had to do for him growing up, but there were a lot of days that he spent by himself while she was working. He had Gina, of course, but he was never really sure if she was an accurate portrayal of what it was like to have a sister. 

To have _six_ siblings. _Seven!_ David had six brothers _and_ a sister. Come to think of it, somebody else he knew came from a really big family like that. Somebody who—

Luke’s words echoed through his head at that moment. _The best Santiago brother._

Santiago. 

Seven boys and a girl. 

He was on a really weird blind date to a family party. And the girl he was waiting to meet? 

He almost laughed. It couldn’t be. It _couldn’t_. He couldn’t be waiting for Amy Santiago to walk through the door. He was _not_ on a blind date, surrounded by the _many_ brothers of the same woman who, less than two weeks earlier, left little red marks around his wrists from her cuffs, marks that he could still faintly see as he got ready for this date. This date that _wasn’t_ with her. 

But what the fuck were the chances that it was somebody else? Camila was talking to him, but he hadn’t even heard what she was saying because he was on the brink of entirely _losing it_ as he tried to do the math but he didn’t even know how many people lived in the city, the _same city_ she was from, and how do you divide that to get the answer, anyway? Two and a half million divided by seven? Divided by how many families had seven kids? Six boys and one girl? Who had the same last name as her?

He shook his head. He was coerced into going on a blind date with the woman he’d been sleeping with, the woman who he wasn’t really speaking to because _they needed space_. The woman he was going on this date _to get over._ David was right. He _would_ like her. He knew he would, because he already _did_. Liked her way more than he should, way more than was appropriate for a relationship where most of their interactions outside of work didn’t even involve them _talking_.

He wanted more than that. 

He was going on a blind date with Amy Santiago. A blind date that she didn’t actually know about. And she was going to be _pissed._ He knew her pretty well, regardless of what she said, and he knew without a single doubt that she was going to be mad. 

Maybe he could get out of it before she got there. He could fake a work emergency—but David could probably verify the next day. And what if one day things _did_ work out with her? He didn’t want to be on her family’s bad side if they had any sort of—

No. They _didn’t_ have a future together. She’d made that much clear. And he was hopeful, he was a dreamer, and _yeah,_ some may even say that he was a romantic, but he was _not_ stupid. She was making him stupid. 

_No,_ she wasn’t. It wasn’t her fault that he was being stupid. It wasn’t her fault that he liked her. He should learn how to get a fucking grip, that had nothing to do with her. She had been very clear about what she wanted from their relationship from the very beginning.

And he thought he wanted the same thing. At least at first. 

He had a little inkling of awareness that he was developing feelings for her. It was just little things here and there, and it was so easy to ignore it. Then when he couldn’t really ignore it anymore, it became so easy to deny it, to rationalize it, to make up excuses for why he would be thinking about her in the middle of the day simply because he saw a hot chocolate vendor and—should he get potato pancakes for lunch? 

The only thing that _wasn’t_ easy about having feelings for her, he eventually realized, was accepting them. She didn’t reciprocate those feelings, and she wasn’t particularly shy about reminding him of that. 

He didn’t know what made him choose her at cop con. He was in a room full of people, but he asked _her_ to throw that peanut at him. He stumbled into his room with her, tipsy and horny, and it never had to be more than that. She didn’t even tell him her name. 

He didn’t know why he followed up the next day except that she had been on his mind from the second he walked out of his room. He wanted to see her again, wanted to know if there was a chance of that ever happening. And she was very clear even then that it wasn’t happening.

And he was fine! That was _fine._ He didn’t think about her almost _at all_ after that. A few months went by. He even went on a few dates.

He hadn’t even thought about her as the NYPD Christmas party drew near. But when he noticed her there… Charles had no problem pointing out that he hadn’t stopped glancing at her from the moment she walked in the door. He _wasn’t_ lying to her when he hinted at being down about being single during the holidays. He was _very_ single, not for lack of trying to meet people, but for lack of having any sort of a connection with them. And there they were, flirting, vibing in a way that he hadn’t with any of the people he’d been out with. It all just felt so easy with her. There was clearly something between them, he thought. Then she asked if he wanted to get out of there, and _of course he did_... 

It would be easy enough to say that he just wanted to sleep with her ( _again_ , they’d already proven once that they were very good together), but that’s not why he followed her when she walked away from their misunderstanding. He followed her because she was upset. He wanted to clear things up, wanted to make her feel better. But then the mistletoe, and she kissed him like _that_ and things moved so quickly, the car ride—

He should _not_ be thinking about that car ride in the living room of her parents’ house, surrounded by her way too many brothers. But now it was in his head and the images were barreling through his mind but he was _mad at her_ and confused and _fuck_ , this is the last place he should be, but how was he supposed to get out of it?

Maybe he could climb out the bathroom window?

“Mom, what happened to the—” Amy trailed off as she walked in the door, almost bumping directly into Jake, who was still standing in the entryway like he might make a break for it any second. 

Her eyes met his, frantic and confused before she immediately reverted to a brand of calm that only Amy Santiago could pull off in what he’s sure was a personal crisis for her. “Uh, hi,” she said sweetly, speaking directly to him. Then she glanced at all of her brothers. “Who is this?” 

Jake stammered for a moment. He hadn’t thought about exactly how they were going to play this, so he was glad that she spoke first. “Uh… Hi, I’m Jake.” He extended his hand forward for her to shake. She only squeezed it a _little_ harder than necessary, so maybe that was a good sign. 

“Don’t be mad—”

“¿Qué te pasa?” Her eyes flickered angrily across David’s face, and while he wasn’t sure what she was saying (he didn’t even know that she was fluent in Spanish?), he could tell that she was pissed (called it). 

David shook his head at her. “Dale una oportunidad.”

“Necesitas un novio, mija—” Camila cut in, but Amy interrupted her. 

“Hello to you, too.” She rolled her eyes, gesturing to herself. “That’s _my_ decision.” 

Camila sighed, and he was pretty sure she was about to start some sort of lecture when one of Amy’s brother’s jumped up to interject. Benji glared at David, who was standing to the side of Camila and Amy like he didn’t know what to do.

 _“¡Basta, basta!_ Let my baby sister come in the door, Ma.” He wrapped an arm around Amy’s shoulders, seemingly sheltering her from both David and Camila as he walked her to the living room, and while David was the Santiago brother that Jake knew best, Benji had easily just taken the place of best Santiago brother in his books. Sorry, Luke. 

“Sorry about that,” David said to Jake, walking around the long way to take him to the living room with everyone else. “Amy and our mom have a… _strained_ relationship.” 

Jake nodded, smiling politely, but averting his eyes. He knew Amy, and David didn’t know that he knew Amy, and he didn’t want her brothers giving him information about her that she didn’t want to share with him. He wasn’t in the best place with her, but he wasn’t an asshole. There were also vague memories floating around his head, times when she’d mentioned that there was a particular brother that she didn’t really get along with. Something was telling him that that particular brother was none other than David, and he wasn’t sure what to do with that information. He didn’t know David super well, but he always kind of thought he was an okay guy. 

“So, _Jake,_ ” Camila began as he sat down next to Amy, “what do you do?” 

“Oh,” Jake smiled tightly, avoiding Amy’s eyes on him. “I’m actually a detective.” 

“And get this, Amy. What precinct are you at?” David nodded toward Jake. 

“The nine-nine.”

“The nine-nine?” Victor asked.

“The… uh, the ninety-ninth precinct, sir.” He looked at Victor, but then he shied away from his responding gaze. Something about him made him nervous, but it’s not like he was actually dating his daughter or anything. 

Although he _had_ slept with her…

_A lot._

“Ah, so Raymond Holt is your captain?” Jake noted Amy perking up next to him. He recalled the day they’d met, when he mentioned that he was with the nine-nine and Amy had seemed weirdly excited. Of course, she worked with him now, too. He resisted the confused expression that he wanted to shoot toward Amy. Did they not know that she worked there?

“Yeah, he’s been at the precinct a little over a year now. He’s a great captain.” 

Victor smiled. “I would expect nothing less of him. Give him my regards when you see him.” 

“Of course,” Jake replied. “You know each other?” 

Victor laughed, hearty and full. “I have some _stories_ about him. Maybe I can tell them to you sometime?” 

“Literally any time. I would like to hear those stories literally any time ever.”

“Okay, okay,” Julian interrupted. “Let’s get to the good stuff. You ever been married?” 

_“Julian,”_ Amy, Benji, and Tony all said in unison. 

Eli reached over and smacked Julian. “Middle child syndrome at its finest.” 

Jake laughed. “No, it’s fine. I’ve never been married.” 

Mateo looked up and made a face at him. “Then what’s wrong with you?” 

_“Mateo,”_ Amy said through gritted teeth. 

Mateo shrugged. “We have to make sure our big sister isn’t dating some weirdo. What’s the point of having all these brothers if we don’t scope out the men you bring home?” 

Amy groaned. _“I_ didn’t bring him home. _Your_ brother did—” She gestured to David. 

Mateo scoffed. “That’s _your_ brother.”

“Hey!” David whined. 

“And we’re not dating—” she looked at Jake. “We just met.” 

Jake tilted his head in confusion, but he caught on when she threw a furious glance in his direction. “Oh, yeah. We haven’t even gotten a chance to get to know each other yet. I mean, _jeez_ , take a guy to dinner first.”

Jake swallowed hard as all of Amy’s brothers, save for David and Benji, blinked at him unamusedly. 

“I’m sorry… I’m just trying to get this straight here. Did you just imply sexual conduct with our sister? Whom you _just_ met?” Tony was staring directly at Jake as he said it. Tony was the largest, and he suspected the oldest, Santiago brother. 

“What? I—” He looked to Amy for help, temporarily forgetting that a) he wasn’t supposed to know her and b) she was mad at him for being there. She ignored him, but she was glaring at Tony. “I didn’t mean—”

“Leave the boy alone,” Camila finally scolded. 

Elijah broke out into a laugh. “Man, you should’ve seen your face!” 

Tony reached across the couch and slapped Jake on the shoulder lightly. “Welcome to the family, man!” 

“This could not be going better,” David mumbled at the side of the room, clearly proud of himself. 

Amy rolled her eyes at David. “We haven’t even spoken to each other. What do you mean it couldn’t be going better?”

“This is a good one,” Luke nodded his head as he spoke. “I can just tell.” 

“You know what—”

 _“Amelia!_ You’re going to scare him off.” Camila interrupted Amy, receiving a dramatic eye roll in response.

“You know what,” Victor interjected, looking amongst his sons. “Why don’t we give Amy and Jake a little bit of space to get to know each other?” 

“That’s a great idea, honey!” Camila stood up and began shooing her sons out of the room. “C’mon, boys. Take your party to the back yard. Elijah, help me in the kitchen.”

Mateo groaned as they walked away. “Things were just getting interesting!”

David turned around and flashed Jake a double thumbs up as he trailed out of the room. When he turned to look back at Amy, her eyebrows were furrowed, eyes narrowed as she glared at him. 

They both started frantically whispering at the same time. 

_“What_ are you doing here?”  
“I didn’t know this was your family—”

“What do you mean you didn’t know this was my family? How did this happen?”

Jake rested his fingers on his temples for a second, moving out of the position with a panicked shrug. “I don’t _know_. You know, we’re,” he paused to gesture between them, “like, not really talking, and David’s that detective that I work with sometimes. The last few times, he asked me if I’d be interested in a blind date with his sister and I always said no. Until the other day.”

“Did you know I was his sister?” 

_“Why_ would you think I knew that?”

“I don’t know, you meet a guy with my last name who asks if you want to date his sister and you don’t even think there’s a possibility—”

“I thought if your brother was a cop you would have mentioned that at some point!”

 _“In the middle of fucking you?_ How would that have come up?”

“Stop acting like we don’t ever talk. There were opportunities.” He sighed heavily. 

Amy rolled her eyes. “So what, he invited you to come to a family dinner and you just accepted? What kind of a first date is that?”

“I _didn’t know_ that your entire family would be here. He gave me the address and said he’d introduce us at his place. I found out that it was a family event as we were walking in the door. That’s also when I found out that you, _whoever you were_ , didn’t even know that he was bringing a guy for you to meet.”

“Fucking David.” She pinched the bridge of her nose for a moment. “Since when are you even dating?”

“Since when do you care?” They stared at each other, tensions running high. He shook his head, taking a deep breath. His whispers were softer as he spoke again. “Look, I didn’t realize this was your family until right before you walked in the door. If I had known it was you, I never would have agreed to this.” 

Her eyebrows drew together. He knew better than to think she would be disappointed by that.

She sighed. “I think, based on the nature of our relationship, we should make each other aware if we are dating other people.”

“Dating _other_ people?” He laughed quietly. _“We_ aren’t dating. Remember?”

“So you _are_ mad at me?” She waited a moment for him to respond, but he didn’t say anything. “You know what I mean. You said this was on pause. If you’re sleeping with other people during the pause—”

“I’m not.”

He turned away from her. This conversation was too much. He wasn’t just mad at her, he was still _hurt_. Hiding behind anger was easier than saying she’d hurt his feelings by practically saying that she only called him when she was horny. He thought, stupidly, that if he did things _just right_ , maybe it would change things between them. But she was making new rules all the time. He couldn’t keep up, much less work around them. 

He could never do things quite right, anyway. He should’ve known better. She had been transparent about it. Things were never going to change between them. So when he said that he knew her, when she fought so hard to say that he didn’t, when she chained him to his bed and kissed him like he’d never been kissed before, when her voice and her touch got soft, he should’ve fucking known. He should’ve known it didn’t mean anything.

But he didn’t. So on top of everything else he was feeling, he felt stupid.

“Jake…” She reached over and touched his hand, but he pulled it away. 

“Listen, it’s fine. I can just go. Tell them I had a family thing.”

“Jake—” She grabbed his wrist lightly as he moved to stand up. He turned to look at her. Did she want him to stay? “It’s gonna look weird if you leave now.” 

He shook his head. “Yeah.” He sighed. “Look, I’ll hang around for a while and then I’ll just dip out after dinner.”

“Thank you.” 

He sat back down, making sure to keep his distance from her. “But can you do me a favor and not argue with your family the whole time? You can have a good time. You don’t have to be so stressed.” 

She raised her eyebrows. “I’m not stressed.” 

“Yeah, _okay,”_ he mumbled, sarcasm thick. “Do they not know that you transferred to the nine-nine?”

“They don’t. And I plan on keeping it that way. At least for tonight, what with this,” she gestured between them, “and all.” 

“Amelia,” her mom called from the kitchen. Jake snickered quietly, earning an eye roll from Amy. She popped her head around the corner to look at them. “Do you and Jake want to help with dessert?” 

Amy looked at Jake, who shrugged. “I would _love_ to help with dessert, Camila.” 

He stood up, extending his hand for Amy to take. She glanced at Jake, then toward her mom, then reluctantly took his hand. 

Eli looked over at them as they walked into the kitchen. “Full disclosure, Jake. Amy can _not_ cook. Dulce de leche is the only thing mom lets her touch.” 

Amy elbowed Eli in the side. “My dulce cheesecake bars are _delicious_ , Lij.”

He groaned, tipping his head back. “I would die for them. You gotta make ‘em, Amy. You know mom has all the stuff.” 

“Dulce de leche?” Jake asked.

Elijah and Amy both turned to stare at him, eyes wide. “You’ve never had dulce de leche?”

“I don’t even know what that is,” he admitted.

Camila looked knowingly at Amy. “Dinner is all prepared, I just need to cook it, but that can wait. The space is yours, if you want it.” 

“Okay, well it’s decided, then.” Amy walked over to the refrigerator and began pulling out all of the ingredients. “Prepare to have your world changed forever.”

Eli skipped over to the door. “Oh my god, the twins are gonna freak.” 

Amy’s mother, unbeknownst to them, slipped out of the room to join the rest of the family outside. Jake stood to the side, watching her pull out bowls, baking pans, measuring cups, and utensils. 

“What do you want me to do?” 

“Well _first,”_ she pulled a large zip lock bag out, then emptied some graham crackers from the package into it. She began sealing the bag. “Can you crush these graham crackers for me?”

“Perfect job for me,” he agreed, taking the graham cracker bag and immediately beginning to break them up. 

She began melting butter on the stove, measuring out powdered sugar and salt to add to the bowl. Jake was still smashing graham crackers in his hands when she turned back to face him. 

“Look,” she took his hands, moving them and the bag down to the counter. “Press them like this.” She pushed her hands on top of his, pressing the crackers down against the counter. “You want to break them into tiny crumbs. It’s better if you use something hard instead of just your hands.”

Jake cleared his throat, her hands still pushing against his. His voice was low and maybe a little shaky. “Title of your sex tape.”

She stopped moving her hands, still pressed against his, and turned to look at him. “What?” 

“I mean, you totally did that on purpose, right? It’s Better if You Use Something Hard Instead of Just Your Hands. Title of your sex tape.” 

She stammered for a moment, looking at him like she wasn’t sure what to say. Then she pulled her hands away from him, intent on stirring the butter. “That was actually a pretty good one.” 

He smiled proudly as he continued smashing the graham crackers. 

“Okay,” she returned, the pan of melted butter in her hand. “Open the bag and pour it into the bowl, please.” 

He did as she said, then watched as she slowly poured the butter in with one hand, mixing it with the wooden spoon in her other hand. “Okay, now grab that cup of powdered sugar and dump that in for me?” 

He picked up the powdered sugar, but it slipped out of his hand, falling and clattering against the counter. The powdered sugar poured out, some in a dusty cloud, and got all over Amy. She gasped, flinching as the sugar cloud got in her face. “Jake!”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry, it was an accident!” He rushed to move the sugar away from the table, making a face at how much of it (a lot) had gotten on her. 

“It’s fine, just––” She continued mixing the crumb concoction together. “Just measure out some more and dump it in here please. We have to add all the dry ingredients in before it gets too stuck together.”

He quickly complied, scooping the measuring cup back into the bag and sifting it over the bowl as she stirred. “You like that move? I got it from Chopped.”

She laughed softly. “Just add the salt, Jake.” 

He dumped the salt in regularly, watching as she continued stirring. After a moment, she rested the spoon on the edge of the bowl. Before he even had a chance to register what she was doing, he was flinching away from the handful of powdered sugar she was throwing at him. 

“Okay, _fair,”_ he said as he ducked away, laughing at her. “But to be honest, I think I got way more on you than you got on me.”

“Oh, you think so?” Amy looked down at herself like she hadn’t noticed. “You wanna help me get it off?” 

“Help you get it off?” He asked, voice going up an octave like he wasn’t sure what she meant. “I can grab you some paper towel—” 

“I was actually thinking more along the lines of…” She trailed off, stepping closer to him and playfully pulling at his shirt. His eyes flickered over her face, and as he was leaning in to kiss her, the back door opened. They both jolted apart, Jake reaching for the spoon so he’d have something to look busy with. 

“Hey, how’s the—” Benji trailed off, glancing between Jake and Amy, who were both avoiding his gaze silently. “Everything okay in here? I’m sensing kind of a weird vibe.” Neither of them said anything, but they did glance at one another. “Plus you’re both covered in powdered sugar.” 

“I, uh, dropped the cup of powdered sugar,” Jake informed him, offering an embarrassed smile. 

“...Right. I was just checking in, making sure David didn’t set you up with a serial killer or anything.” 

“Totally something he would do though, right?” Amy asked, laughing with Benji. “We’re okay. Just finished the crust, so the cheesecake should be in the oven in no time.”

“Alright. I guess I’ll leave you to it, then.” He looked suspiciously at Jake, then walked back outside without another word. 

Jake cleared his throat quietly once Benji left, looking at Amy, who’d already started spreading the crumb mixture into the bottom of the baking pan. “So, you’re close to Benji?” 

Amy glanced up at him. “What?” She appeared to register his words, then. “Oh, yeah. He’s the brother between me and David, so I think we were kind of always connected by the need to team up against our big brother.” She nodded to herself while she smoothed the mixture down until it was all even. “You know, David’s the family favorite, so that always struck a chord while we were growing up. I guess we kind of felt like if we teamed up, we’d have more power in the family.” She shrugged. “Side effect of having so many siblings. Some of us always band together, even now.” 

Jake hummed. “I never had siblings. It sounds pretty cool.”

“They drive me insane,” she continued without looking up at him, “especially growing up being the only girl in the middle of all these boys. But I love them. Even stupid David.”

He laughed softly. “What did David do to be so stupid?” 

Amy turned to look at him as if he had insulted her. “Well, first of all, he can do no wrong in my mother’s eyes. So every time David did _anything_ , it got blamed on me or Benj. As we got older, it evolved into David upstaging us at every possible turn, and it’s all just spiraled from there.”

Jake turned to busy himself with wiping the powdered sugar off of the counter. “I don’t see how anyone could upstage Amy Santiago.” He shrugged. “And I bet David’s dulce cheesecake bars are nothing compared to yours.” 

She was quiet for a moment, and when he looked up at her, she was staring at him thoughtfully. “What?” 

She shook her head, grabbing the other ingredients that she’d pushed to the side. “Nothing. You ready to start the actual cheesecake part?” 

So they got started on combining all the new ingredients, Jake showing her the _coolest way to crack eggs_ , only dropping one on the floor in the process. He splattered batter on the counter when she let him use the mixer, and he laughed when she yelled at him for licking the spoon when they were done. 

“Jake, that has raw eggs in it. You’re gonna get salmonella.” 

He made a face at her. “What does salmon have to do with raw eggs?” She tilted her head, looking completely dumbfounded. He chuckled, turning away from her and beginning to wipe the stray batter off the wall. “I’m joking. But jeez, Santiago. Live a little.”

She scoffed. “I’m going to live a lot.” He raised an eyebrow at her, so she stumbled into an explanation. “You know, when I’m still alive after you died from salmonella poisoning. I can see the headlines now. _New York Detective Dies From Licking a Spoon.”_

He shot her a serious glance. “Salmonella doesn’t kill you. I’ve had it twice.” He was already laughing at her expression before he even finished saying it. “I’m _joking_. God, you’re too gullible.”

“Shut up and come over here.” He could hear the smile in her voice, and he couldn’t wipe the grin off of his own face as he walked over to her. 

“Okay, Jake. This is the most important step. The cake is in the oven. We have to have the dulce de leche ready by the time it’s cool.” He nodded seriously, surveying the four ingredients she had on the counter. “Basically we just measure this all out and then stir it over low heat until the cake is done cooling.” 

He glanced at the timer on the oven. “I’m sorry—we have to stir this for forty-five minutes?”

“Actually, more like an hour and a half.” He groaned, tipping his head back dramatically. “Not the whole time, dummy.” She was already measuring the milk as he whined about how stirring was _boring_. She shoved him lightly, mixing the ingredients into the pan. “Like you’ve ever had a problem passing time. You never stop talking.” 

“Just because I’m talking, doesn’t mean I’m not bored.” 

“Listen, just trust me. Once you taste it, you’ll be glad you spent all that time stirring.” 

“You know, Ames? You’re really hyping this up. I hope it lives up to the expectation you’re setting right now.” He paused, crossing his arms. “I’m talkin’ gummy bear breakfast burrito levels here.”

Her eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t even want to know what that is. But I assure you, this will surpass that.” 

He peered over the edge of the pan. “I don’t know… It kind of just looks like milk sauce.”

She reduced the heat, slowly stirring the spoon throughout the mixture. “It’s been like four minutes, Jake. You’ll see. Here, stir it. We have to get your technique down.” 

Jake made a face as he took the spoon from her. He stirred it around the pan erratically, then set it down on the counter. “There. How soon do I have to stir it again?” 

“No, no, no. Whatever you just did there—that was _not_ stirring. Here.” She picked up the spoon again. “Hold this.” 

He took the spoon and began to stir it again. The liquid sloshed around the pan as he spun it too quickly. 

“Jake, c’mon.” She placed her hand over his, slowing his movements down. “Like this.”

She demonstrated quietly for a moment, guiding his hands. “You have to take your time. You want to make sure it doesn’t stick to the pan, or it’ll burn. Slow down.”

She looked up at him, but he was already looking at her. “What?” 

He shook his head, looking back down at the pan. “Nothing.”

They took turns stirring and talking, only fielding visits from Amy’s various family members three times. Jake had been talking about work, about the cute family he ran into at the bodega last week, about that time he went sledding and broke his arm when he was nine, and about anything else that popped into his head when Amy peered over his shoulder. 

“Jake, I think it’s done.” She pulled the spoon out of his hand, stirring it around and checking the consistency. 

He gasped. “It’s been an hour and a half already?” He raised his eyebrows as he watched her inspect it. “So… it’s just caramel?” 

She gasped. “Jake _Peralta_. I know you did not just call this dulce de leche _just_ caramel.” 

He pushed himself up to sit on the counter, laughing at her as he did. 

“Jake, this isn’t funny. Here.” She scooped some onto the spoon, then paused to blow on it. “Taste it and you’ll see.”

She raised the spoon up to his lips, waiting expectantly as he tasted it. He made a face at her. “Yeah, I don’t know, Ames… It’s _okay_ , I guess.”

“What? Jake, I swear to god, if you somehow messed this up I’ll never hear the end of it from  
Elijah.” She stopped to taste it herself, looking down thoughtfully. Then she set the spoon down on the counter. “You know what? No. You’re crazy. This is amazing.” 

“Here, let me…” He trailed off.

It all happened so slowly. She was a few steps away, but when he reached out and touched the side of her arm, she stepped forward without any further prompting. She settled comfortably between his legs, and when he tucked her hair behind one ear, she tilted her face towards his. 

He held her gently. There was no ulterior motive prompting his hands to search for more. He kissed her, slow and decisive. She wound her arms around his neck, so tentative in their effort to bring him closer. It was over almost as quickly as it had begun, his tongue hesitantly tracing her lips as he pulled away. He leaned his forehead against hers, and they stayed that way, silently breathing each other in for a few moments. 

“Just like I thought,” he whispered. “I mean, it’s good… but it tastes way better on your lips.” 

He watched the blush rise in her cheeks as she looked away, and as quickly as the moment had approached, it was gone. She was bringing the dulce de leche to the counter, pouring it over the cheesecake bars. She swirled a spoon over the top of the mixture, making little peaks and swirls as it cooled. 

“It has to all cool,” she informed him, “but you just completed your first batch of dulce cheesecake bars. How are you feeling?” 

“I’m having lots of feelings,” he answered honestly. She didn’t meet his eyes, but she didn’t have to. They both knew. 

They spent some time outside with her brothers while her parents went inside to finish preparing dinner. They passed around a few beers, and before he knew it, he was joining her brothers in teasing her. Eli brought up the dulce bars again, asked him if he tasted them yet. 

“Oh my god, if you would’ve told me she could make something like that a month ago when she brought those ‘cookies’,” he made air quotes with his fingers, “into work…” He trailed off on a laugh, and it didn’t immediately register to him why Amy was elbowing him in the ribs. 

_“Wait a minute,”_ David stared suspiciously at them, and Amy was already groaning. “A month ago? I thought…”

“Wait, you two know each other?” Luke laughed. “I knew this was gonna get interesting!”

“We, I, uh…” Jake scrambled for an excuse. “We didn’t _know_ each other, per se…” 

“You just said she brought cookies into work,” Benji pushed. 

“She… I mean, she did, but she—”

“Wait…” David was piecing everything together. “You work at the nine-nine, Amy? I heard that a precinct in the area closed, but I never heard which one… You didn’t reply when I texted you—”

“David, I—”

“Why didn’t you tell Dad?”

“I was going to tell them today, but then you brought _Jake.”_

David glanced between them. “And Jake…”

“Oh my god,” Benji covered his mouth, catching David’s attention. “Jake is the guy?” 

“What? No—”

“Because Jake was in a relationship with someone, but it turned out to be more casual than he thought… And that wasn’t _you_ , right, Amy?” David prompted them for more information, but Jake and Amy glanced between each other, stammering and trying to work together to come up with some sort of excuse.

“Oh, Amy…” Tony trailed off. “And that’s why you acted like you didn’t know each other.” 

“I _told you!”_ Elijah shoved his phone in Tony’s face, then passed the phone around for everyone else to see. He pulled up a picture from Amy’s instagram, she and Rosa posed together at the bar. Jake was in the background talking to someone out of shot. 

“More important problems to discuss right now,” Tony smacked Eli’s phone back into his lap. 

“Nothing is more important than me being right.” 

Jake was glancing between all of her brothers as they interjected with their own thoughts and realizations. 

“And that’s why I caught you guys about to kiss when I walked in earlier.”

“ _Benji_ ,” Amy scolded quietly, but all the brothers were already looking at him. 

“Oh my god, that’s him?” Mateo looked Jake over like he hadn’t paid attention to him from the moment he walked in the door. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Amy. I like him.” 

“You talk about me to your brothers?” Jake asked, ignoring the part where Mateo made it sound like Amy said something bad about him and looking at her with a huge grin in the middle of the tense conversation. 

“Oh my god… I wasn’t sure. It _is_ him?” Benji was looking at Amy, waiting for an answer that she wasn’t going to give him. “This is the guy who has you so confused?” 

Amy kicked him across from the gap between their chairs. “Shut _up.”_

“He seems like a good guy,” Elijah chimed in. 

“He _is_ a good guy,” David replied. Amy groaned, covering her face. 

“I feel like we’re breezing over the fact that he’s taking advantage of our baby sister,” Tony said to Eli, glaring over at Jake for a moment. 

“No, no, no. _She’s_ taking advantage of _him,”_ Benji corrected, earning another kick from Amy. 

“Okay, we’re both adults, nobody is being taken advantage of, _thank you_. Look, can we just talk about something else? Anything else?” 

“I don’t know, Amy… I’m not tired of watching you blush, yet.” Julian teased her. “How long have you been banging my sister, Peralta?” 

“C’mon, Julian!” Mateo shouted.

“Thank you!” Jake replied quickly. 

Amy mumbled under her breath as she shook her head. “Don’t thank him.” 

“Obviously their preferred term is _boinking_ , idiot.” Mateo finished. 

Jake pursed his lips, nodding down toward the ground. _“Ooookay,_ spoke too soon.”

“Listen, can you guys please stop? I don’t really want Mom and Dad finding out about all this.” 

“Wait, you _don’t_ want Mom and Dad to find out that you’ve been sleeping with the,” Luke stopped to mimic their mom’s voice, _“very nice boy that David brought over?”_ He snickered quietly when she tossed the water bottle off the table at him. 

“Alright, alright, leave them alone,” Benji cut in. He leaned over and smacked Amy on the knee. “I’m only allowed to tease her because I’m her favorite.” 

This started a new wave of bickering between all the brothers. 

“I swear you guys are still fourteen.” Amy rolled her eyes.

Julian scoffed. “We can tell you’re not. Fourteen year old Amy said sex was for marriage.”

She groaned, but Tony laughed. “Yeah, fourteen year old Amy was totally a virgin.”

She made a face at him, and Jake laughed. 

“C’mon. Fourteen year olds _should_ be virgins. But _twenty-five_ year old Amy was still a virgin.” David shrugged his shoulders. 

“I was _not.”_

Her eyebrows were all scrunched. Her cheeks were tinted pink, and she looked adorably mad as she refused to steal a glance at Jake. He laughed quietly, but placed his hand just above her knee and squeezed softly.

“Awwwww,” Julian and Mateo hummed in sync, clearly teasing. 

“Oh, look at the cute couple,” Eli practically swooned at them. 

Jake awkwardly pulled his hand back to his lap, both of them blushing and fidgeting as all of her brothers laughed at them. 

“Kids,” Camila stuck her head out the door. “What are you all laughing at?” They all quieted, looking at their mother and trading glances amongst themselves. She scoffed. “Dinner’s almost done. Tony, come help set the table.” 

\--

Dinner was full of much less teasing. 

Amy’s parents asked about his family. He talked about his mom, about his nana. When asked about his dad, he smiled through a quick explanation that his father left when he was child and hadn’t been in the picture much since. He shied away from Camila’s devastated, sympathetic gaze. 

Victor frowned. “I’m so sorry to hear that, Jake.” 

Jake nodded, looking down at the food on his plate. “Yeah. You know, it’s fine. I turned out alright, I guess.”

Camila offered one of those sad, hopeful frowns that people often gave him when he talked about his dad. “You turned out more than fine, Jacob.” She paused. “Your full name is Jacob, right?”

He laughed quietly, cutting a bit of the tension he was feeling. “Yeah.” 

When asked about his siblings, he revealed that he didn’t have any. Everyone at the table had something to say about that, ranging from the brothers all giving a different version of _ugh, you lived the dream_ to Camila’s much more downtrodden response. 

“You must have been so lonely.” 

_“Mom.”_ Amy glanced at Jake, then glared over at her mother. 

“If he doesn’t want to talk about it, he can tell me himself, _Amelia.”_ Her mother made a face at her.

Amy’s fork clinked on her plate as she set it down. She rested her hands on either side of her plate, and Jake could see the tension in the way she bent her elbow. Her mother brought out the worst in her. 

He would help. He’d just shrug it all off, talk about whatever. It was fine. No reason for anybody to fight, right? 

“Uh, yeah. It’s fine.” He offered Amy a gentle smile, but her jaw was still clenched when she smiled back. He turned back to Camila. “I have this friend, Gina. We grew up together. She’s basically a sister to me, except, ya’know, we didn’t live together. But we were around each other all the time, stayed at my Nana’s together. Ya’know. All that.” 

Camila smiled. “Well, I’m glad you had that.” 

And things were going pretty much okay. 

Then he found out exactly why David was the worst. 

He pushed and pushed and pushed. He’d get their mom to say something good about Jake, which already had Amy twisting her fingers next to him for reasons he didn’t exactly understand. Then David would watch Amy fidget, and he’d bring up one of his own achievements. Camila would excitedly chatter all about David, doting on about her _perfect son_ , and all of the other siblings would roll their eyes. Then David would go right back to bringing something about Jake up. 

“Ma, you should’ve seen this arrest that Jake made. Tell them about it, Peralta. You’re gonna love this, Mom.” Camila looked to Jake with a smile. 

Jake glanced over at Amy, who looked vaguely like a volcano that was seconds from erupting. He shrugged his shoulders. “It wasn’t really that cool. What about you, Amy? You have any cool arrests or anything? I haven’t gotten to, uh… learn much about you.”

Camila cut in. “As far as the coolest cases go, David takes the cake. But let’s hear your story, Jake.” 

Amy sighed. Jake shook his head. “I actually don’t feel like it’s an appropriate story to tell over dinner.”

“Nonsense. We’re a police family, son.” Victor smiled, Amy somehow tensed further. “I’d love to hear about it.”

“Yes, your stories have been so interesting!” Camila added. 

Finally, Amy broke. “You know what, uh, just… excuse me.” She pushed her chair back without looking up at anyone. He watched as she made her way to the stairs and walked to a room that was out of his sight. 

David had the hint of a smirk on his lips. Benji rolled his eyes and shook his head at him. 

Jake glanced around the table uncomfortably. Camila shook her head, sighing to herself as she looked back down at her plate. 

“Sorry, I’m just gonna…” Jake trailed off, pushing his own chair back to stand up. “Is it cool if I go check on her?” 

“Her old bedroom’s the one on the right,” Victor informed. “That’s probably where she’s at.” 

Jake nodded. “Thank you guys.” He held his hands up to them as he made his way to the stairs. “Sorry.” 

All the doors to the right were open except one. He knocked on the door, pushing it open a crack when she didn’t say anything. “Ames? It okay if I come in?”

She didn’t look up at him from where she sat on the foot of her bed. This bedroom reminded him vaguely of her current home, with slightly more childish touches. The walls were a pale pink, the bed set white with purple, ruffled accents. She pulled at one of the ruffles absentmindedly, staring down at the floor.

“You’re already here, aren’t you?” A stale laugh escaped her lips, and the sound made him more uncomfortable than he’d been all night. 

He shut the door as he came in, made his way over to sit near her on the end of the bed. 

“I get it. Family can be a lot.” He stammered, searching for words. “I can see it in your face, you know. I know you pretty well, and even though you said you’re not stressed… I can see it.”

She wouldn’t return his gaze. “You keep saying that. That you know me.” 

“I’m just saying that we know more about each other than we really let on.” Jake shrugged. “I can tell that you have a lot going on. And I know things have been kind of confusing between us at times, but I’m here. As your friend. Whatever you need.” 

She turned toward him, a look in her eyes that he recognized, but that felt very misplaced. She pressed her palms into the bed, leaning closer to him in a way that in and of itself felt more heated than it should have been. Her fingers traversed the bed between them, making their way to his wrist and lightly tracing the inside of it. He looked down and watched the movement, unwilling to pull his hand away.

“Let me show you exactly how well I know you,” she practically whispered, and if they were anywhere else, just the sound of her voice would have had him pulling her shirt over her head. But they _weren’t_ anywhere else. They were in her childhood bedroom, and her whole family was downstairs. He flexed his jaw, willing his hands to avoid doing what they wanted so badly to do. 

Goosebumps raised across his skin when leaned into him, whimpering softly between the kisses she pressed to his neck. His arm wound around her waist hesitantly, but not quite reluctantly. He wanted her— _god_ , he wanted her—but not like this. He hadn’t realized he was holding his breath until she spoke again. 

“I know _exactly_ how to break you down, Jake.” He took a shaky breath as she trailed her fingers down his chest deliberately slowly. Her voice got softer as she continued. “I know exactly what you like… and I know _exactly_ how you like it.” 

His fingers tightened around her hip, and she laughed gently against his ear. “It’s okay, Jake.” She popped the button on his jeans, and when he tipped his head back, a subdued little groan escaping his lips, she found that spot on his neck and pressed her lips there gently. 

“Ames, I don’t—” He paused, sucking in a sharp breath as her teeth grazed that spot. “I don’t know if we should…” 

He shifted away from her, standing up to get a little bit of distance between them. Distance equals clarity. He definitely wasn’t going to be able to think clearly with her lips on his neck. She stood up to follow him. She stood in front of him, careful to not close the distance between them. 

But then she looked at him like _that_. Her eyes all wide, innocent. She pulled her bottom lip between her teeth, flicked her tongue across it, and he was gone. He pulled her closer. He’d gotten a taste of her earlier, and he’d been wanting more ever since. He hadn’t properly kissed her in _weeks_. 

There was nothing soft about this kiss. It was all rough hands pulling each other closer, tipping her face so that her lips would meet his exactly the way that he wanted them to. His stupid hands were pushing for more, sliding underneath her shirt because apparently he had no self control, and that was definitely something he needed to work on. Another time, when her hand wasn’t pressed flat against him, fingers trailing down his chest. 

His voice was weak. “Ames…”

She pulled back so she could look in his eyes. “What’s wrong? Are you scared we could get caught?” He tightened his jaw again, but when she brushed her lips against his, he closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against hers. “But… doesn’t that turn you on a little?”

She grinned against his lips, then gasped softly as she slipped her hand beneath two layers of fabric. He worked to steady his trembling breath as she grasped him. “Oh my god… It turns you on a lot, huh?” 

He swallowed thickly. “Just…” He breathed a sigh, “Lock the door.” 

She twisted her wrist, bringing on a new series of weak breaths from him. “There’s no lock. Used to lock my door so I could read after I was supposed to be in bed, so they took off the lock when I got caught.” 

“God, you’re a fucking nerd,” he whispered, but he was smiling. He kissed her more gently, pulling her hips closer to him. “Why don’t you just come to my apartment when we leave?” 

She shook her head, working his jeans a little lower so she could play with him with ease. Their lips continued to brush against each other as she spoke, his irregular breaths falling against her lips. She was breaking down every bit of judgement he had in him, and he cared less with each press of her lips. “No. I’m gonna make you come for me right here. And then we’re gonna walk back out there and pretend that nothing happened.” He whimpered as she changed her pace. “Unless you had another plan…” 

He grabbed her wrist with his free hand, quickly pulling it out of his jeans. He used his grip on her hip to spin her around so her back was leaning on his chest. His voice was low in her ear. “Is this what you wanted?” He tugged on her button until it complied, then pulled her jeans down, immediately tucking his hand in the front of her pants. A low groan rumbled against her throat as he touched her. “Fuck, this is exactly what you wanted.”

His erection pressed against her back. She whimpered softly, but her dark laugh still managed its way out. “I told you I knew how to break you down.” 

He laughed softly. “Works both ways, babe,” he whispered in her ear, and just the tone of his voice paired with his fingers teasing her had her rocking closer to him. “I’ve missed you like this,” he continued, littering wet kisses across her neck between words. “All worked up. _Begging for me.”_

“I’m not begging for you,” she said shakily. A soft sound escaped her as he teasingly pressed a finger inside of her. 

_“You will be.”_

For just a second, the only sound in the room was her anticipatory sigh, waiting for the moment that she knew he was about to give her. It was the moment on a roller coaster, way at the peak. Time stops as you’re hanging over the edge, and you know you’re going to fall, but everything is so _still_. You’re full of anticipation, adrenaline coursing through you because it’s _thrilling_. You’re up on top of the world, looking down and you’re breathless. There’s nothing but this moment.

And then it drops. Everything happens so fast, that breathless feeling intensifies until you’re gasping for air, that feeling in the pit of your stomach carrying you all the way til the end. When it’s over, as you walk away on shaky legs, all you want is to do it again. 

That’s exactly how she felt, though roller coasters were the last thing on her mind as she leaned her weight against Jake. He was pumping two fingers inside of her, his thumb only nursing her desire with every soft flick against her clit. He was angling his fingers just right, giving her just enough that her breathy whimpers were tipping into soft moans.

He pulled his hand out from under her shirt, quickly trailing it up to cover her mouth. “Shhh,” he whispered, his forehead leaning on her head as he kept up his pace with his other hand. “I know you feel so good, but you gotta stay quiet for me, Ames. Can you do that?” 

She nodded, but he knew better than that. He slowed his pace, hooking his fingers deeper as he slowly pulled his hand away from her face. Instead, he wrapped his fingers around the base of her throat loosely, keeping her in place. He obliged her when she tipped her face toward his, catching her in a kiss that was full of lust, full of her need and his desire, full of so many emotions that he couldn’t push away no matter how hard he tried. 

“Please,” her voice was hushed, one of her hands travelling to the back of his neck in a feeble attempt to keep her balance against him. 

He chuckled against her throat. “You’re gonna have to do a little better than that.”

“Jake— _ah,_ fuck…” She trailed off when he sped up momentarily. “Please…” She turned her head so that her quiet moan was muffled by his throat. 

“Please what?” 

“Please—” Every time she began to speak, he sped up, leaving her breathing shakily around hums and gasps. This time, he didn’t slow down again. 

“Want me to give it to you faster?” His voice was low again, his words falling quickly against her skin. “You want it harder?” He could feel her trembling against him, her breath skittering as his fingers did exactly what he was asking her about. “Want me to fuck you right here, make you come for me?” 

His hand clamped back over her mouth to suppress her enthusiastic response. It was so easy to get lost in her, but he hadn’t forgotten where they were. She was getting so close—too close, and he was torn between giving in and letting her finish (they should really get back downstairs…) and taking his time with her like he really wanted to. 

But as he said… It was _so easy_ to get caught up in her. 

“What if that’s not how I wanna give it to you?” His voice sounded almost dark, even to him. She whined at the loss as he drew his fingers out of her completely, but then he was shuffling her backwards against the bed. He took his place hovering over her. She hummed against his lips as he kissed her. “What if I want to take my time with you?” He nudged her cheek gently with his nose, trailing kisses along her jaw. “What if I want to fuck you slow? Wanna make sure you remember every little detail when you’re alone tonight…” He sucked that spot on her neck between his teeth, biting softly and making her whimper quietly. “...thinking about me.” 

Her fingers laced through his hair as he moved down her body. He pulled her shirt up, not bothering to remove her bra. They didn’t have time for that. Instead, he pulled the cups out of the way, tongue circling one nipple slowly before showing the other the same adoration. He looked up at her and laughed softly. She’d gone almost completely silent, but she arched closer with every place he pressed his lips. 

He trailed down her ribs, making sure he found that ticklish spot with his tongue, grinning when she giggled and jerked away for a moment. When he made it to her hips, he didn’t pause to tease her any longer. He wanted her, and he wasn’t going to act like he didn’t. He hooked his fingers underneath her panties, pulling them down her thighs with ease. He guided her jeans off the rest of the way, planting kisses down her legs as he did. When he was comfortably settled between her thighs, he stopped to marvel at her. 

She really was beautiful, even all dishevelled like this. Maybe _especially_ all dishevelled like this. Her eyes, dark with desire as she stared expectantly at him. Her eyebrow arched questioningly as she recognized the teasing look he was giving her. She bit her lip softly, the lips he had been kissing, proof written all over them. Her hair fell over her shoulders, spilling onto her clothes, all in disarray from the way his hands had been roving over her. The curve of her ribs, one of his favorite sensitive spots to tease her with.

He’d never much been one for art. Art history was lost on him entirely, even the few times when Amy’s expertise probably should have kept him invested. He didn’t know his renaissance from his impressionism, couldn’t tell a contemporary piece from a modern if there was a gun held to his head. What he knew without a doubt, art history aside, is that Amy Santiago was a work of art. 

He wasn’t an artist by any means, but he could see himself spending hours trying to perfect this painting, trying to get this exact image of her eternally committed to a canvas, the way it would forever live on behind his eyelids. It would take him hours just to mix the paints, the Amy Santiago palette, all warm browns and soft pinks. 

He ran his fingers along the outside of her thighs, pressing soft, warm kisses to her inner thigh. He looked up at her again, moving higher and higher up her thigh, words interspersed between kisses. 

“What if I want to taste every inch of you? What if I wanna see how you react to every move I make?” He pressed one final kiss to her thigh, his tongue dragging dangerously close to where she’d beg him to touch if she was just an ounce less stubborn. “Would that be okay?” 

Her answer was written all over her face. Something felt different about this. The intimacy from their last encounter, weeks earlier, fought its way into his movements. He’d found himself between her thighs dozens of times at least, but this somehow felt like a whole new experience. She’d never let him be this soft before, never responded so well to his tongue working her so slowly, so deliberately. She sighed as he quickened his pace, traced her clit the way she liked. He _had been_ taking his time with her, but he was serious when he thought that they should make their way downstairs. 

She gasped softly, hands grasping fistfuls of the blanket she lay on. She didn’t rock closer to him, didn’t lock her fingers into his hair to bring him impossibly closer. After a few minutes, her sighs shifted into whimpers, and he was enjoying this new experience way too much to let it end so quickly.

He was curious, he supposed, when she pulled him so that he was looking at her face again. She tipped her fingers underneath his chin, beckoned him closer until he crawled up her body, eyes intent on her face the whole time. 

_She_ kissed _him_. She kissed him softly, softer than any kiss she had ever initiated between them before. Softer than that night in his bed. Impossibly softer. Sweeter. _She_ tugged his jeans down the rest of the way, _she_ positioned him, _she_ pulled him closer, _she_ moaned quietly against his lips as he pushed into her. This had not been his plan. 

But when did anything ever go according to his plans when it came to her?

Was this what sex between them was like now? He never would have guessed that soft and slow would have been his preference, but _fuck_ , something about being with her was different from anyone else he’d been with. He’d take the drunken nights, trying to keep their hands off of each other in the back of a cab. He’d take the whispered instructions, the emotion that they both shied away from until they were together like this. He’d take the more exploratory days, cuffs, and toys, and _we should try this._ He’d take all of her, if she’d let him. He leaned his forehead against hers, letting the sensation of her nails on his back take over. 

She moaned his name against his lips, soft and sweet and _so_ fucking sexy and all of the logistics of what was happening faded completely out of his awareness. The only thing in his world was her. Her tongue, gently sweeping through his mouth while one of her hands traversed his hair, the other gripping onto his hip to help her shift against him. She arched her back with each thrust, changing the angle with which they met, her sighs getting a little more desperate at the change. 

He supported his weight with an elbow, his arm tucked underneath her upper back and fingers tangling through her hair. His other hand guided her hip, mirroring the way she held onto him. Her tongue darted across her bottom lip, and _god_ , he wanted to kiss her again, but she was looking into his eyes and he didn’t want to miss a glance, a flash of emotion, a blink of those beautiful eyes. 

“Jake, harder—” She arched her back again, responding to his immediate shift. His hand left her hip, scaling up her body and splitting his attention between her face and her chest as he doubled down his efforts. She groaned softly, arching to find the same angle that they’d somehow lost. 

When she couldn’t replicate the exact position, she bracketed her calves around his hips, pushing back against his shoulders until she could adequately flip their positions. The momentum of the change forced him into her a little deeper, her hand pressing over his mouth momentarily to muffle his satisfied groan. She kept up his slow rhythm, her hips twisting against his when she found the position that had her shuddering against him each time she sank down his length. He clasped his hand over hers, pressing soft kisses into her palm between each sigh. He slid his other hand up her hip, dragging her shirt back up where it had fallen down and twisting it in his hand to keep it in place. She pulled her hand away from his face, twisting her fingers through her hair, and his hands lurched forward, scrabbling for purchase in the touch of her skin. He needed to feel her, needed the sensation of her skin sliding across his fingers to keep him grounded, _needed her_. 

“Ames,” he whispered against her palm, his voice carrying the weight of so much more than just her name. He punctuated the declaration with another kiss. He watched through hooded eyes as she rose and fell on top of him, a beautiful smirk making its way onto her lips when she realized he was getting close. This wasn’t so much a race to the finish line as it was a road trip, long and slow and unaware that they dipped below the speed limit in the dim hours of the night. There was no rush, destination set ahead, all the time in the world to explore the expanse of road in front of them—

“Amy!”

Two times in his life, Jake Peralta could remember everything stopping around him. 

The first time was thirty years earlier, when he was a mere seven years old. He could still close his eyes and watch the entire situation unfold before him. His father had been packing his things, and when Jake asked what was going on, he smiled sadly and replied with a _everything’s fine, buddy._ Two hours later, his parents sat him down and explained everything to him. His dad would be leaving, but he loved him so much. They would still see each other all the time. 

All of that was fairly vivid in his memory, but the thing that really stopped the world around him happened after his dad walked out the door. Jake watched the car pull away, his 1985 Chevy, some truck Jake never took the time to learn the actual name of, chugging out of the driveway. When he turned back around, the severity of the situation struck him. For the first time in his life, he saw his mother cry. She tried her hardest to choke back the tears, to put on a brave face for him. When he offered her a hug, she pulled him into her arms, coming undone even further. He could practically still feel her sobbing into his shoulder, her broken voice telling him that everything was going to be okay. 

To this day, he hasn’t seen her cry like that. Not even at his Nana’s funeral. She cried for a few minutes, then she turned to him with a tearful smile. She squeezed his shoulder, tipped her fingers underneath his chin. _Okay, buddy. Thank you so much for being such a brave boy for me. You want to watch Ninja Turtles while I start dinner?_

He nodded slowly, still confused and pretty afraid, and went to do just that. He stole glances at her the entire time, but all her tears were gone. She put on her own brave face, taking on the weight that two parents should have been bearing, and doing it all with a smile. He loved her so much, never deserved her. There were two years between that day and the next time he saw his father. 

The second time was this exact moment. 

Amy stilled on top of him, his hands tightening on her hips. Her hand smacked against his chest as she stopped, leaning against him and bracing herself to listen to what was happening next. They both tried to quiet their breathing, staring into one another’s eyes and listening for the sound of movement on the other side of the door, knowing all too well that there wasn’t a lock there if whichever brother called her name tried the handle. 

“Amy, I swear to god—” A fist pounded lightly on the door. “Are you seriously…” He groaned, his voice getting lower. “Tell me you’re not doing what I think you’re doing right now.” 

Jake’s breath left him in a soft exhale as she lifted herself off of him, scrambling to the floor and tossing his shirt up to him wordlessly. “Uh… I’m not, Benji.” 

“Then I’m coming in—”

_“Don’t come in!”_

“That’s what I thought!” His fist hit the door again, a little more forcefully than before. “What is your deal right now? Fuck—look, if they find out what’s happening right now, say goodbye to your spot on the piano. Welcome to the staircase, with the rest of the disappointments.” 

“What the fuck is he talking about?” Jake whispered as he pulled his shirt over his head, working at the button on his jeans before finally situating his flannel back onto his arms. Amy was already dressed, adjusting her hair and lipstick in the mirror, though he was pretty certain the state she was in left no questions about what they had been doing. He stepped alongside her, trying to rub her lipstick off of his neck. 

“God, _fuck,”_ Jake huffed, feeling anxiety swell in his chest at the thought of walking downstairs in front of her entire family like that. This wasn’t what he wanted when he followed her up the stairs, wasn’t what he planned at all. 

“I’m coming in,” Benji called as he pushed through the door. He furrowed his eyebrows at them when he made it into the room. He held his hands up, palms toward them, shaking his head. “You two are in deep, huh? You look like shit.” He snickered quietly, making his way over to Amy and fixing the hair that Jake was too panicked to adjust when he’d noticed it. 

“In deep?”

“Amy, you just fucked him _at Mom’s house._ Don’t tell me you’re not—”

“You’re the worst brother, I don’t know why I ever thought you were my favorite.”

Jake stood between them, staring blankly as he tried again to quell the wave of anxiety within him. He looked back toward the mirror, watching in the reflection as Benji fixed the comforter on the bed.

“You _love me_ , and you know damn well if it was any other brother who cared enough to come up here and check on you before one of our parents did, this would be going down a lot differently.” He changed his voice, mimicking a brother that Jake still couldn’t quite recognize from his short time around them. _“Ma, Amy’s having sex upstairs!”_

“He would _not.”_ Amy defended whatever brother he spoke of. 

“Maybe not, but he’d tell Mateo and Mateo definitely would.” Benji’s hand clapped on the back of Jake’s shoulder, startling him. “Look, Peralta, you okay?” 

He shook his head, a little disoriented. “Yeah, I’m… Uh, I’m…” He dragged his fingers through his hair, more of a tic than a need to adjust his curls. “Fine.” 

“Amy, help him get that lipstick off his neck, damn. Are you trying to get caught?” Benji threw his hands up in the air. “I should not be getting you out of situations like this like you’re seventeen again. What has gotten into you?”

Jake looked at Amy as she licked her thumb, ignoring her brother and rubbing little circles on Jake’s neck to try and get the lipstick off. 

“What even is this?” Benji continued, sitting on the edge of the bed and making Jake’s eyebrows pull together because he and Amy were literally just _right there_ and this was the strangest night of his life and it was getting hard for him to breathe and there were emotions strangled in his chest and he wanted them out but how did he get them out without actually having to endure them? 

“Are you trying to make Mom and Dad dislike him? Because the golden child brought him here for you?” 

“Can you stop talking about him like he isn’t here, Benj?” Amy finally replied, much more furiously than Jake had expected her to. 

“Ding, ding, ding.” Benji laughed dryly. Jake watched his reflection shake his head.

Jake’s full attention was on Amy now, watching her face as Benji continued to push through this idea. 

“That’s fucked up, Amy. David being an asshole has nothing to do with Jake. You shouldn’t have dragged him into it.” 

“Can you—” She sighed heavily, shaking her head, and Jake watched every flash of emotion that passed over her face. Anger, frustration, something that vaguely mirrored sadness, but wasn’t quite it. “Can you maybe just give us a fucking minute, Benjamin?” 

Benji scoffed. “Yeah, _Amelia._ But you know if you’re not back down in the next five minutes, a much more difficult Santiago is going to be coming up these stairs, and I don’t know about you, but I definitely wouldn’t want to be trapped in a room I’d just had shameful sex in with _either_ of our parents.” He shook his head again. “See ya down there, Jake. Good luck.” 

He gave one more glance at Amy before he left the room, scoffing and shaking his head at her again like he’d expected better from her. Jake idly wondered if that’s what having a sibling was like. 

The door shut softly behind him, and Jake’s eyes were back on Amy. “Is that true?” 

She avoided his gaze, dabbing at the lipstick on his neck still. “Is what true?” 

He grabbed her wrist lightly, stopping her in her tracks. She reluctantly met his gaze. “Everything he just said. Bringing me up here to fuck me because David brought me here, to prove some… point?” 

She didn’t move, but her eyes flickered back down to his feet. “Technically I didn’t bring you up here. You followed me.” 

He blinked at her. “If that was supposed to be a joke, it wasn’t funny.” 

Amy pulled away from him, sighing and sitting on the bed in the same spot her brother had just been on. “Look, Jake.” She took another deep breath. “Of course this wasn’t my _plan_. I didn’t know you’d follow me.” She took a deep breath. “I just couldn’t tolerate being around him anymore.”

Jake looked at her expectantly, waiting for her to continue. She shook her head to herself, like she was still trying to make it all make sense. “The thing is just that… They only like you because David brought you here. If I would have brought you here, introduced them to you as my boyfriend,” he flexed his jaw, tried to mask the way that that phrase sent a whole shockwave of feelings through him, “they would’ve smiled fakely in your face and ignored all your stories and then when you left my mom would’ve told me that she could set me up with _the nice boy, the bodega owner’s nephew, he’s a doctor.”_

He came to sit next to her on the edge of the bed. His eyes stayed trained on the floor in front of him. 

“But since David brought you here… You’re perfect, like him. But I know for a _fact_ they wouldn’t like you if I brought you here. They’d find every single thing wrong with you that they could. You’re too immature, you make jokes about sex, or you reference Die Hard, or you––”

“I haven’t done any of those things,” Jake cut in. “I have enough social awareness to know that I shouldn’t make sex jokes in front of _your parents, Amy.”_ Apparently he didn’t have enough social awareness to know that he shouldn’t have sex with her in her parents’ _house_ , but he just got a little caught up, okay? 

“But if you did those things when David brought you here, it wouldn’t have mattered. If you went downstairs and did it right now, they’d probably talk about how _eccentric_ your sense of humor is, and it’s so interesting that you and David are _such_ good friends because you’re so interested in pop culture, because David doesn’t have anything to do with pop culture. But if _I_ liked you, you’re crass and you’re impolite and uncultured. She’d be peeking at your car out the window and making insinuations about how fiscally responsible you are. My dad wouldn’t be offering to tell you stories about Holt, that’s for sure.”

Jake scoffed. “If you liked me.” 

“What?” 

He stood up, running his fingers through his hair. “You said _if_ you liked me.” He shook his head, wringing his fingers around each other and thinking through exactly what he even wanted from here. “But you just brought me here and you _fucked me_ , at your parents house, and—”

“I didn’t bring you here,” she corrected. 

“You’re right, I’m sorry. David brought me here. And then you were all weird in the kitchen and you were touching my hands and there was clearly—” He took a shaky breath. “There was clearly _something_. I just don’t…” He trailed off, shaking his head again. He slid his hands across his face, pinching the bridge of his nose between his index fingers. “I don’t get it. If you know how I feel about you, why would you kiss me like that?”

“Jake, I kiss you all the time.” 

_“No.”_ He shook his head, his voice more stern than he had probably ever been with her. “You know exactly what I mean. In the kitchen, I kissed you and you _let me._ You kissed me back.” 

She shook her head. “And then you told all my brothers that you were my fuck buddy.” 

“I mean, that’s all I ever was to you.”

“What?” 

He shook his head. “Right?” That’s not what this conversation was supposed to be. “You just said you don’t even like me. _Friends_ at least like each other.” He laughed stalely. “I get it. This isn’t about rules at all. I’m good for one thing. I’m a fuck up, and liking me would be the worst thing that could ever happen. To you, or to your parents, or whatever.” 

“Jake, that’s not what I’m—”

“You know, Santiago, if I wanted to think bad things about myself, I could’ve just stayed home.”

“Jake—”

“I’ll see you at work.” 

And with that, he was storming out of the room. He didn’t look back to see if she was following him, barely looked through the house as he was on his way to the door. He had to walk through the dining room to get to the door, and the family all watched him with concerned, curious eyes as he walked out. He paused, lacking all grace and finesse, with lipstick still staining his neck and hair that had been given so much attention that it looked like he just rolled out of bed. 

One of the twins snickered. Benji’s hand shot up to smack him on the back of the head, earning a whiny _hey!_ Camila covered her mouth as she looked at Jake with wide eyes. 

Jake stammered. “I… Uh, I’m really sorry… I have to leave. Thank you so much, for dinner, and for…” He shook his head, feeling self-conscious and shaky all over again as the adrenaline coursed through him with no outlet. “Uhm, just… everything, I guess. It was really nice meeting you all. I’m sorry.” 

David gestured to Jake in a way that clearly meant _what the fuck????_

Everyone was left in stunned silence, and Jake didn’t take the time to wait for someone to find their voice. Instead, he pushed forward, refusing to glance back and see if Amy had ever decided to follow him. He shut the door behind him, not as hard as he wanted to, and stalked his way to his car. He got in, frustrated and sad, angry, and above all, _fucking hurt_. He slammed his door shut too hard, slamming his hands on the steering wheel, patting himself on the back for never getting the horn fixed. He can only imagine her entire family watching him punch the horn through the bay window. Then he rolled his eyes, coming to the realization that if he were more _fiscally responsible_ , as Amy had said, he probably would have gotten the horn fixed. 

She was absolutely right. He wasn’t good enough for her. Her family knew it, she knew it, and it was about fucking time that he got to know it, too. She didn’t like him, had never liked him, and it seemed like no matter how many times she said it to him, or found some roundabout way to tell him without saying the actual words, he still couldn’t get it through his thick fucking skull. 

He should thank David sometime. If nothing else good came from this, at least he could finally see where he stood with Amy. This is how it was, and he wished it didn’t take something so extreme to get him to figure it out. Better late than never, he guessed. He didn’t need to waste anymore time somewhere where he clearly wasn’t wanted. 

He pulled off, thinking about all the things that Amy had said, plus the two hundred other flaws that she hadn’t thought to point out for him. 

He really was stupid for her. 

But not anymore.

––

She sighed, running her fingers through her hair for what felt like the fiftieth time since he’d walked out of the room. She half expected one of her family members to appear, but they didn’t. So as slowly as she possibly could, she collected herself. 

She knew that whatever was facing her outside of this bedroom was going to be less than pleasant. She wasn’t even sure if he’d stayed or gone, but she had to assume that he left. He still had lipstick all over him, was clearly a picture perfect map of what sex with Amy Santiago looked like, all rumpled and kiss stained and, apparently, devastated. 

It didn’t seem fair. He shouldn’t be able to just pop up places where she didn’t expect him. Was nowhere safe? He already had the opportunity to get away from her, but she was stuck at work, staring at the clutter on his desk all day. She couldn’t even come to her parents’ house for a night without running into him, without making things between them worse. God, work was going to be _delightful_. 

Not only did he just pop up wherever the fuck she was at, but then he came in all ready to talk about his feelings and _since when_ was Jake open about his feelings, anyway? She wasn’t ready to talk about her feelings, only vaguely knew that she had feelings for him in the first place, but he just knew how he felt and could actually put words to it and—

Was he the one making more sense between the two of them?

God, maybe he was right. Maybe they _did_ need some space. 

She had a plan for this night. She was going to come in, give everybody a half hour of talking and reminiscing before she gave them the news about the transfer. It was sure to be a huge deal, especially because she’d failed to mention it for so long. She walked in the door and straight into Jake, and _god,_ he was always ruining her plans. 

Her fingers weaved into her hair, scratching lightly at her scalp because _fuck_ , this isn’t what she thought this night was going to be like. So much for coming over and having a nice dinner with her family, right? Now she was sitting in her childhood bedroom alone, the ghost of Jake’s touch still on her hips, and all she could picture was the look in his eyes when she offhandedly said _if_ she liked him… 

She’d been saying all the wrong things to him lately. 

Nothing she said is what she meant, and yet it was all exactly what she meant at the same time. She had always been so great at expressing herself. She was great with language. Grammar, syntax, all of it, could eloquently describe what she meant and what she needed from a very young age. Emotion came with a bit more difficulty for her. Growing up with seven brothers didn’t exactly make her lean into vulnerability, but she was sure that she’d taken great strides since stumbling her way into adulthood. 

That being said, emotional moments were still laced with a thread of professionalism. She had quickly learned that sometimes that tiny thread could throw off the entire picture—as was the case when she broke up with Teddy, for example. She wrote out a well planned break up essay, sure to hit all of the major points, tying it all together with a strong thesis statement. She _hadn’t_ factored his reaction into the event, proving that emotion wasn’t the only realm with which she erred. 

She had always been introverted, but this was yet another thing she had been working on into adulthood. Perhaps that’s why she’d talked to Jake in the first place. 

Except that she knew the reason she’d talked to Jake in the first place. It was the pair of strong hands steadying her, quickly backing off in apology of invading her space. It was the disarming smile, the goofy laugh and the glimmer in his eye when he explained a childish bet. He was so quick to convince her to participate, and she didn’t even know why, couldn’t imagine having said yes to that except that she was talking to him and he was just so charming and silly and then when he kissed her…

There was nothing childish about him when he kissed her. That first night, he was all serious, even through the alcohol flavoring each kiss that they shared. Of course since then, the many times that they’d been together, his personality has shone through in intimate moments more times than she could count. And on paper, the way that he acted and the things that he said would have been a turn off to her. So why weren’t they? Why did she like him even _more_ because of those things?

Why did she find herself ducking closer to meet him for those soft kisses from the very beginning, when she claimed to hate them so much? Why did she bring up things that she knew would lead to him talking about Die Hard, just so she could argue about which was the better cop movie? Why did she push away the intimate moments when he was pulling her in for them? 

Because he wasn’t a part of her plan. And she wasn’t sure if she could adjust her plan now. Regardless of how she felt about him, or didn’t feel about him, or _might_ feel about him... This is just the way that things were. 

But it seemed that she wasn’t the only one who was having feelings that were kind of confusing. This was referenced not only by the way that Jake had been acting, but by the way that they’d been the past two times that they were together. It gave her goosebumps to think about it, his lips pressing soft against her palm, his fingers gentle on her sides as he helped to guide her through the motions, his eyes on her as he worked to make sure, above whatever he was feeling, that things were good for her. 

She shook her head to herself. She would have enough time to beat herself up over everything, every detail that she’d _definitely_ remember, just like he’d said, between now and when she saw him at work again in the morning. For now, she had an even more unpleasant situation to tend to. 

She pulled herself together and walked downstairs, her family already staring at her as she neared the bottom of the steps. 

“Amy, what did you _do_ to him?” Camila asked as soon as she was within ear shot. 

“I didn’t—”

“David, you should call him and apologize for Amy’s behavior. He was a nice boy. He seemed very upset when he left.” She shot a glare in Amy’s direction, and she felt herself flare up at the gesture. She locked eyes with Benji for a moment, and whatever she found in his eyes is what gave her the courage to finally say something. 

“You don’t have to call Jake and apologize to him, David. I’ll be apologizing _myself_ , when I see him at work tomorrow.” 

Victor raised an eyebrow at her. “When you see him at work tomorrow?” 

She nodded, crossing her arms across her chest as if she were trying to put up an extra layer of defense between them. “Yeah, must have forgotten to tell you guys that my precinct was shut down, so Rosa and I were transferred to the nine-nine.” 

Victor threw his hands up in a _what the hell_ kind of gesture. “Why wouldn’t you mention this to me?” 

“Because I didn’t want you going behind my back and putting in a good word for me with Captain Holt. Because I’m an adult and I wanted to make my own impressions with my work ethic and the professionalism that I’ve spent years cultivating and perfecting and—”

“What does this have to do with Jake?” Camila looked confused, her brow furrowed.

“Jake works at the nine-nine, Ma.” David nodded toward her, eyes still on Amy. 

“He’s my new partner.” 

Camila was clearly mulling something over in her head. “But… He had lipstick…”

Benji shook his head, fingers digging into his temples in preparation for the conversation that was about to unfold. 

“Amy,” Victor shook his head, folding his napkin and dropping it onto his plate like the idea of him continuing his meal was ludicrous. “You can’t… with your _partner?”_

Just as Benji had predicted, Mateo piped in. “Well they weren’t partners when they _started_ sleeping together.” 

Camila choked on the sip of wine she was taking. She sputtered. _“Sleeping together?!”_

Both of her parents began spouting off lectures, half in Spanish and all in a rush, and Amy was too busy rolling her eyes at Mateo to catch the first half of what they’d said. They were talking over each other, both of them yelling at her and then Benji was yelling at Mateo and Mateo was yelling at David because _if David didn’t bring Jake here none of this would have happened_ and then David was yelling at Amy because _it isn’t his fault that Amy can’t maintain a normal, adult relationship_ and then that was the final straw. 

She was yelling. _Loud._ Everyone in her family sat silently, staring at her with mouths agape. 

“It doesn’t _matter!_ I never asked any of you to find me someone. I am doing _fine_ on my own—”

“Apparently you’re not,” Victor cut in, “since you’re dating your partner.” 

“It doesn’t concern any of you.” Amy shot back, a healthy dose of acidity behind her words. “If I want to date my partner, that has _nothing_ to do with you. Or you,” she pointed at her mom, “and it _especially_ doesn’t have anything to do with _you.”_ She jabbed her finger in David’s direction. 

“I’m just saying,” Victor began again, a little more stern, “that if you want to continue on your path to becoming a captain, having things like this on your record could be a dealbreaker for you. Is he worth that to you?” 

Amy’s eyebrows scrunched up. He was getting in her head, asking questions about Jake specifically—questions that weren’t entirely new to her. She shook her head, her voice soft, just the slightest bit broken. “I don’t know, Dad.” 

“Amy, you’ve worked so hard for all this…” He shook his head. “And you’re just going to throw it all away? For what? Some guy?” 

“Dad, just drop it,” Benji finally added in. “She’s an adult. She’s got it under control.” 

“Having a plan does _not_ mean she has it under control,” Camila replied bitingly. 

Amy stared at Camila, determination suddenly overcoming her. “How did you feel about Jake?” 

“What?” 

Amy shook her head, quick to repeat herself. “How did you feel about Jake, Mom?” 

Camila shrugged. “I liked him. Until I found out about _your_ history with him. Maybe he’s not that great of a guy after all.” 

Amy chuckled dryly. “Yeah. That’s exactly what I thought.” She turned around to face the door, then shook her head. “I’m gonna leave.” 

“Amy,” her father called out. 

She held her hand up, her voice getting shaky again. “It’s been a really long day. And I love you guys, and I’m sorry for ruining everything. I’ll call you in a couple days.”

She turned and made her way out of the house. By the time she’d made it to the end of the street, she’d already ignored phone calls from Benji, Tony, and Eli. 

She found herself, yet again, on the other side of a hurt Jake Peralta. Things were okay again, and their friendship had a chance, and the second she was given the opportunity, she messed it all up again. At least she was good at one thing. 

Now she had to try and salvage the pieces of their friendship _again_. Although this time it might be even more difficult, considering she’d hurt him more and she’d only barely gotten past hurting him the first time. She pulled off on the side of the road. 

He was absolutely right. They needed to take a break from all of this, just be friends for a while. How could she prove that she cared about him, that she _did_ like him? What could she do to show Jake that his friendship was important to her, and that she was willing to work for it? That she was sorry for all the stupid things she said, that her words didn’t reflect her feelings?

She had a couple ideas, but if she was going to make any of them happen before work in the morning, she probably needed to get a head start on it, now. 

Her long night was about to get much longer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay hahaha this chapter was kind of a lot BUT: next chapter, I promise there's a break from the angst. 
> 
> I double down on the angst after the next chapter, but next chapter IS a break. Promise. ¨̮
> 
> And then I thiiiiiiiiink there are only like two more angsty chapters. Maybe three. 
> 
> Bear with me!
> 
> Hope you were a little surprised with this chapter. I had a lot of fun with all of Amy's brothers and that dynamic. 
> 
> I love you guys, and I've been loving all the sweet comments and love for this story. I appreciate you all so much. ¨̮


	12. leaning on me, saying she's sorry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> super quick chapter felt disjointed from the following chapter. 
> 
> so here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title from I Was Scared & I'm Sorry by The Wonder Years. 
> 
> _She watches Breakfast at Tiffany's, it calms her completely._   
> _I guess Sarah Marshall does the same for me._
> 
> _It's nothing when she's leaning on me and saying she's sorry._   
>  _I'm obviously on the verge of a mental breakdown this week._
> 
> took me longer to choose a title for this chapter than it took me to write it. and THIS is all I came up with.

He knew it was stupid, but he found himself worrying about her. 

She was _never_ late. 

Well, except that one time when she stayed over at his apartment and his alarms didn’t go off. But _obviously_ she wasn’t at his apartment. He’d made it to work on time _(okay, ten minutes late)_ and she was still nowhere to be found. He couldn’t think of a single time since he’d known her that he’d gotten to work before her. 

Normally he’d be making jokes, trying to figure out what was keeping her from being at work on time. But he knew what happened the night before. He didn’t want to draw any more attention to it than was absolutely necessary.

He contemplated texting her, figured that even if he was still upset, he should check in to make sure that she’s okay. She _was_ still his partner, after all. It wasn’t like her to go MIA, and the Captain had already commented on Amy’s absence, so he knew that she hadn’t called off. 

He’d had some time to sit with all of it after leaving. A lot of that time was spent staring in the mirror at his disheveled reflection, wishing that he’d done anything else but walk into a room full of Amy’s entire family looking like _that_. He rethought every action he’d made, from showing up, to not leaving when it was just the two of them in the living room, to following her upstairs, to letting his desire to be with her outweigh his sense, which he swore he had when she wasn’t around. Another large portion was spent feeling sorry for himself. He laid in his bed staring at the ceiling, just being mad at Amy for longer than he’d care to admit. 

But after he gave himself that time, he dedicated a little more thought to it all. 

It wasn’t _entirely_ on her. 

Okay, sure, he still thought that _for the most part_ it was on her, but he definitely played a role, too. She was being touchy and weird and all romantic comedy _let me show you how to stir this_ , but he was the one who actually kissed her. 

He followed her upstairs, when as far as her family knew, he was just some guy she’d just met. He had the opportunity to put a stop to it all before things got so heated. He took control of the situation, but he didn’t take it down a notch like he should have. That was on him. While he could point fingers all day, was well-equipped with _she started it_ s… He wasn’t blameless, by any means. He made bad choices, too. 

Maybe they just shouldn’t be around each other at all. While he was away, things were mostly fine. He thought about her, but not too much. He definitely hadn’t dedicated half as much time to thinking about her as he had since he walked up the steps to her parents’ house the day before. Maybe they needed even more space than they’d allowed themselves to have. But they worked together. It’s not like they could really _have_ more space. Unless he, like, transferred, or something. Which—that made _no_ sense. 

Or maybe they just needed more rules. Rules that they’d actually abide by. Rules that _weren’t_ meant to be broken. God, who was he becoming? Jake Peralta, maker of rules? What a lame title. 

But he didn’t want to be mad at Amy. He liked her. He liked her romantic stylez, of course, but more importantly, he _liked her_. As a person, as a friend, as a partner. And if he was constantly at war with himself over her, if he was constantly finding himself in situations where he was hurt by her lack of feelings for him… how was he ever going to be able to maintain a relationship with her in any (non-romantic—he obviously meant non-romantic) way? 

He couldn’t fault her for not liking him in that way. Despite everything that had happened the night before, and despite the resentment that still emanated within him at the thought of how everything went down, he cared about her. He respected her. He wasn’t mad at her for not liking him. He wasn’t even mad at her for having sex with him despite not having feelings for him, because while they had technically put their arrangement on pause, that’s what their arrangement _was_. He was mad at her for the specifics of the night before.

So, last night aside, if she didn’t like him, there was only one real solution for him. It wasn’t finding someone else to distract him from her. It wasn’t repeating the same action over and over and hoping that things would turn out differently for him. It was being her friend. 

Being _only_ her friend. A hang out in groups, only alone in public, figure out how to keep flirting to a minimum (he was realistic, okay?) kind of friend. They were good together. As friends, as partners. Sex is what was complicating everything for them. So if they took sex out of the equation completely… it should be fine. 

He’d have to talk to her. He’d have to have that conversation, the one he’d avoided a few weeks earlier. He’d have to tell her that it would be better for them, better for _him_ , if they called the arrangement off altogether. That’s what was best.

As long as she was okay, and like, made it to work. Where _was she?_ He checked his phone. She was forty minutes late. Which, on Santiago time was, like, an hour and a half late, or something. He should probably call her. 

He turned his head when the ding of the elevator caught his attention. Amy rushed out of the elevator, looking approximately like he did when he came in hungover that day. Her hair wasn’t quite messy, but it was definitely out of order. He wasn’t quite sure, but it looked like she hadn’t slept. She was wearing a gray pantsuit, but underneath it, he recognized the same blouse she’d been wearing the night before. She rushed over to her desk, already speaking before she got there, and seemingly not caring _at all_ if anybody else in the precinct was concerned about her late arrival or the very uncharacteristic state of her appearance. 

“Okay, hear me out.” She pulled her chair over to his desk, still clutching the paper bag in her hands close to her body. “I know I messed up.” 

He raised his eyebrows, and she looked around, like she had just realized she was talking a little too loud. She corrected the level of her voice. “I know I messed up. And I’m so sorry, Jake. You have to believe me when I say I didn’t mean anything I said _like that.”_ She shook her head. “You know, it’s just…” She let out an exasperated sigh. “I know I can’t blame David for what I said—or especially what I did… And I’m not trying to make excuses.”

He watched her carefully, the way she still clutched the bag close to her. He was curious about what was inside. He tried to ignore all her little idiosyncrasies, the way her eyelashes fluttered when she started backtracking on a statement, the way that she bit the inside of her lip as she thought. He tried to keep his eyes trained on hers, but even that was challenging… He was in too deep with her. 

“I let my family get to me. And that wasn’t your fault. It had nothing to do with you, but since you were there… I guess I kind of took advantage. Of you, and your friendship, and… our history. And things never should have gone that far _at all_ with everything being on pause, but _especially_ there.” She took a deep breath, let her eyes stray down to his desk. “I guess I felt like I needed you.” Her eyes flickered back up to his. “Like that. And I dragged you into it. And that was wrong. And I’m sorry, Jake. I’m really sorry if I made you think—”

“Amy.” Jake laughed softly. “It’s okay.” He smiled tightly at her. “It’s possible that _maybe_ I overreacted a little bit.”

She shook her head. “You didn’t overreact. I was awful.” 

“Title of your sex tape.” 

She made a face at him. “Okay, I deserved that.”

He laughed, but he quickly sobered up. He shrugged his shoulders. “I know you didn’t mean it like that.” He looked down, tapped his knuckles quietly on the desk. “And you know, it sucked. Everything that happened after, I mean…” He avoided looking at her. “And I know you don’t want to hear it, but I think I know you pretty well. And I don’t think…” He trailed off, shrugging his shoulders again. “I don’t think what happened is… you?” 

She waited until he looked up at her to respond. “What do you mean?” 

He shrugged again, feeling a little uncomfortable with the whole situation. “It just doesn’t make sense to me. Like, it just isn’t something I think you’d usually do. And I didn’t really give you an opportunity to explain last night, I guess.”

She scoffed. “I mean, I wouldn’t have given me a chance if the tables were turned, either.” Her hands, still holding the bag, moved to her lap. She was frowning, and she seemed like she was having trouble meeting his gaze. She made a point of looking at him. “I’m really sorry, Jake. I was making everything that happened about me when the fact is that they _should_ like you. I was glad that they did, just…” She sighed. “I just know my parents, and it doesn’t have anything to do with you at all, but their opinion of you would have been different if I was the one who brought you home instead of David introducing you.”

She fidgeted with the bag for a moment. “And it’s such a stupid thing to let bother me, you know? Especially because I _wanted_ them to like you. You’re a great person. You’re smart, and you’re intuitive, and you’re funny. You’re kind, and you’re so good at what you do. And all those things I talked about yesterday, they’re not _bad_. They’re just pieces of you. You wouldn’t be who you are without all of those pieces.” She smiled at him, then looked down at her lap and shrugged. “And I like who you are.” 

He had entered this conversation with a plan. He, of course, wanted to know what she had to say, but he was always planning on redirecting the conversation back to the unpleasant part that he didn’t really want to have. Her speech left him with a little uncertainty. She wanted her parents to like him? Why? She likes who he is?

He looked at her, eyebrows pulling together for a moment while he processed everything she’d just said. Then, classic Jake Peralta, he took the easy way out. He grinned at her. “I’m good at what I do? Like… the best detective at the nine-nine?” 

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Do you want me to say that?” 

“I want you to say it so bad, Santiago. Let me get my phone out, though.” 

She rolled her eyes at him. “Jake.” He smirked at her, fidgeting with his phone, then holding it up at her face. “You really want me to say it? Coerced, and all?” 

“Camera’s rolling, Amy. Whenever you’re ready.” 

She sighed, but she was smiling. She took a deep breath, then made a straight face. “Jake Peralta is the best detective at the ninety-ninth precinct.” 

He shook his head at her. “I can’t believe you just did that.” 

“Can I at least see the video?” 

He laughed, then turned his phone screen toward her. “I didn’t actually record it. But it’s nice to know that you would have willingly let a video of you saying that exist forever. Knowing that I could have put it all over the internet.” 

She shrugged. “You wouldn’t have.” 

His smirk returned. “I would’ve deleted my resume and used this instead. Lucky for you, we’ll never know. But thank you. For finally saying what we’ve all been thinking.” He leaned back, stretching in his chair. “That I’m the best.” 

She laughed, shaking her head at him. “So are we okay, Jake? Like, really okay?” 

He shrugged his shoulders, then sat up straight again. “Yeah. I forgive you, if that’s what you’re asking. I mean, I haven’t historically been the best when my dad’s around. Family makes us crazy, I guess.” He trailed off, looking away from her for a moment. “I do think maybe we should talk, though. About our arrangement, and everything… ya’know.” 

She nodded. “Yeah. I actually had a lot of time to think about it last night. Do you wanna go first, or…?” She paused for him, but he shook his head and gestured for her to continue. She nodded. “Okay. So, I was thinking… Maybe we call it all off. Like, for good.” 

He hummed quietly. They were on the same page about something. She tilted her head at his hum, thinking he wasn’t taking the idea well. She continued, trying to cover her steps. “I mean, not that it isn’t a good arrangement, you know. I mean, I like it, I like…” She gestured over him noncommittally with her free hand, and he raised his eyebrows at her. “Oh my god, I’m sorry, I don’t—”

He was laughing even harder this time as he stopped her from fumbling over her words. “Ames, please.” He shook his head at her. “I think we should stop, too. You know, maybe focus on _just_ being friends. I really like being your friend.” 

She smiled. “I really like being your friend, too.” 

They smiled at each other, sharing a quick moment. A moment as friends. This already felt different from the first time they’d decided to be just friends, all those months ago. This time, they both agreed. This time, there was certainty. This is what they needed. This is what was best. And their friendship, at least to him, was really important. 

He’d waited long enough, and his curiosity had gotten the best of him. He pointed at her lap. “So what’s in the bag?” 

Her smile turned more bashful than before. She pushed the bag a little further away from herself. “It’s, uh… a peace offering.” She held the bag out to him. 

He took the bag, opening it up and looking inside. He looked back over at her, a little confused. “What is this?” 

She was clearly trying to suppress a grin, which made him smile even more. That’s something he’d get over with time, right? “So, you mentioned that place you used to go to with your grandma. The place—”

“With the mac and cheese?” He looked over at her, exasperation clear on his face. He reached into the bag, pulling out the large, paper bowl. “You found it? How?” 

She watched as he popped the lid off, inspecting it closely. “I actually searched for a while online. I couldn’t remember the exact name of the company. I guess when we talked about it, you didn’t remember it exactly right, either.” She laughed softly at the pure excitement on his face as he glanced between her face and the bowl. “Turns out it’s just a small, family-owned business. The family moved away, so the restaurant relocated.” 

“I can’t believe you found this for me, Ames.” He was grinning so wide that his face hurt, but he couldn’t find it in him to care. “Where’d they relocate to?” 

She cleared her throat, her voice quieter when she spoke. “Uh… Clearfield.” 

“Clearfield?” He raised his eyebrows, then set the bowl on his desk. “Where’s that?” 

She folded her hands in her lap, her thumb rubbing over her knuckles. “Pennsylvania.” 

When she looked back up at him, he had his eyebrows raised, just quietly staring at her. “...Pennsylvania?” She nodded her head. He nodded back. “Right, but like, the edge of Pennsylvania, right? Like basically New Jersey?” He tried to ignore the pink tint settling across her cheeks. 

She shook her head. “We don’t have to talk about it.” 

“How long did you drive for this mac and cheese?” She shook her head, insistent on not telling. “An hour?” She stayed silent. “Hour and a half?” 

She sighed. “Four hours.” 

_“Total?”_

She wouldn’t look up at him, her voice somehow even quieter. “There.” 

He must have been making a ridiculous face at her, because when she looked up at him, she laughed. He shook his head. “I’m sorry, you drove _eight hours_ to get me a bowl of mac and cheese?” 

She smoothed her hands over her thighs. “It’s probably cold. I probably should have just waited and like, taken you there? But I was feeling guilty, obviously, and I wanted to make it up to you and—”

“Is that why you were late?” 

She chewed on the inside of her lip. “Not _exactly?”_ He tilted his head forward, a prompt for her to continue. “I mean, not because of the drive. So, it took me a while to find the place online, but by the time I got there, it was, like, 4am? And I didn’t check to see if it was open 24 hours, I just drove. So, ya’know, of course… It was closed.” She sighed. “So I was just waiting in the parking lot. I wasn’t just going to turn back around. I figured eventually someone would show up. After I had waited for about twenty-five minutes, the front door opened. I guess they bake their bread fresh every day, so the owner was there prepping. Said he saw my car and wanted to make sure I was okay.”

“Amy…” Jake hadn’t stopped smiling since she’d explained where the food came from. 

“So… I explained everything, in short. How I had a friend that I really messed up with, and you used to come there with your grandma, and how I drove all night from Brooklyn, and I probably looked insane. But he told me to come in, he could have it ready pretty quickly. He kept asking questions about you, and I remembered that picture you have on facebook? The one of you with your Nana? Uh, so, I showed him.” 

Jake was trying to suppress his smile now, trying to fight off the emotion that had his eyes glistening enough that she definitely, probably noticed. 

“He remembered you guys,” she continued. “Said your grandma used to call you Pineapples?” She laughed softly. “I told him I’d definitely be remembering that. He said you used to come in all the time, mentioned a Ninja Turtle figurine that you left behind once. You were so excited when it was still there the next time you came in.”

“Oh my god, I remember that! Leonardo.” He clasped his hand over his heart. “I thought for sure he was gone forever.” 

Amy smiled. “He said you should come in sometime. I mean, it’s definitely a bit of a drive.” 

Jake smiled at her. “I can’t believe you were late for me.” 

She shook her head, rolling her eyes, but her smile was still just as bright. “Yeah, don’t get used to it, Peralta.” 

“Oh, I wouldn’t dream of it. Too many tardies on your permanent record and you’ll have the commissioner in here trying to figure out what happened.” 

Her eyebrows drew together. “I know you’re probably joking, but I haven’t been late enough to know… Does he do that?” 

Jake laughed. “No.” He grabbed the bowl. “Okay, c’mon, you’ve gotta try it with me.” 

She made a face. “It’s like ten in the morning, Jake.” 

He turned back to look at her. “You drove eight hours for this macaroni, Amy. We’re eating it together, and I’m too excited to wait until lunch time.” He raised his eyebrows so she knew that he was serious, and it seemed to have worked, because she followed him to the break room. 

He popped the bowl into the microwave, then pulled two forks out of the drawer. “I still can’t believe you did this. Ugh, you’re the best.” 

She sat down at a table, laughed at him staring into the microwave. “What can I say? I take friendship seriously.” 

He smiled over at her, quickly pulling the microwave door open with one second left, avoiding the beeping that would alert Hitchcock and Scully. He joined her at the table. “Okay. Moment of truth.” He dug his fork in, then waited for her to do the same. “Should we say a few words? Make a toast, or something?” 

Her eyebrows drew together as she thought about it. Then she clinked her fork with his. “To friends.” 

He smiled, clinking his fork back against hers. “To friends. No benefits.” 

She laughed. “No benefits.” 

“Except maybe mac and cheese. That’s a good benefit, right?” 

“Food related benefits are acceptable,” she agreed. 

“I’m kind of nervous.” He looked at his fork. “What if it’s not the way I remember it?” 

She raised her eyebrows at him. “Count of three?” 

He took a deep breath. “Yeah. Count of three.” 

“Okay. One, two—”

“Wait, on three, or after three?”

“Jake.” She shook her head, giggling at him. “After three.” 

“Okay, go ahead.”

“One, two, three.” 

They both took a bite. He chewed slowly, trying to savor every flavor, comparing it to his memories. He watched as Amy made a face, then tried to pretend she hadn’t. He kept a straight face as he finished chewing. “So? What’d you think?” 

She hesitated. “It was… interesting.”

“It’s terrible, isn’t it?” He laughed, but dug in to get another bite.

She frowned. “Wait, you don’t like it?” 

He raised his eyebrows. “What? No, I _love it_. Exactly how I remember it.” 

She laughed. “I mean… It’s a take on mac and cheese, I guess.” She got another bite, and she was clearly thinking while she chewed it. “I don’t know if I’d say it’s _good_...”

“Oh, it’s awful.” He beamed over at her. “It’s perfect. Thank you.” He sighed happily. “Ah, the best detective at the nine-nine sharing breakfast mac and cheese with the second best detective.” 

She rolled her eyes. “I’m never going to hear the end of this.”

“You will not!” He confirmed.

 _Yes._

Friendship was going to be _easy_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> quarantine is kicking my ass and each day is more unpleasant than the last sO THINGS ARE GOING WELL OVER HERE
> 
> Hope everyone's doing okay! And keeping safe! And still washing your hands. ¨̮


	13. it never felt right calling this just friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hiya from the depths of 1am
> 
> Chapter title from All Time Low's Walls. 
> 
> _Hey there, it's good to see you again,_   
>  _It never felt right calling this 'just friends,'_   
>  _I'm happy, if you're happy with yourself._
> 
> _Take off your shirt, your shoes,_   
>  _Those skinny jeans I bought for you,_   
>  _We're diving in there's nothing left to lose._
> 
> _I'm gonna break down these walls I built around myself._   
>  _I wanna fall so in love with you, and no one else,_   
>  _Could ever mean half as much to me as you do now._   
>  _Together we'll move on, just don't turn around._
> 
> _Let the walls break down._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> realized the other day that this fic is basically at the same word count of hygim in less than half the chapters. I really don't know how to shut up, huh? Not sure how you guys deal with me, but thanks!

They say it takes 21 days to break a habit. It turns out that Jake Peralta was _not_ just a habit for her. Or perhaps that saying just doesn’t hold any truth. Either way, it had been a month and a half, and she was still thinking about him way more than she should. Way more than she thought about any of her other friends. Way more than she can ever remember thinking about Teddy. And they dated (for _months)._ Way more than _just friends_ should think about each other. 

She had been under the impression that this would be easy. 

She thought that she could just shut her feelings off. She knew that this is what was best for them. She knew this was the safest option, that if they kept up a friendship between them, they could always have each other. 

That should be enough. 

And most of the time, it was enough. 

Sometimes, it wasn’t. 

Sometimes, they were in the car on a stakeout for the tenth consecutive hour, and the rising sun would hit him just right. He’d be leaning back in his seat, painted with an orange-y glow, his eyes drifting shut. _Wake me up in fifteen minutes, and I’ll be good to go._ She’d last two minutes before her eyes were drawn to him. His messy curls, wild from his hands, not hers. The shadows his eyelashes cast on his cheeks, the slight upturn of his lips, even when he was resting. She could see the glimmer of the light shining on the stubble in that spot he always missed under his jaw. Maybe it was just that she’d been awake for far too long and her eyes, too, were growing heavy… But she wanted to curl into his side, imagined pressing those soft kisses against his jaw that would make his familiar smile stretch across his face as his arms wound around her. 

Sometimes, they were at the bar, and her tipsy haze had her craving more than just one of those really good burgers from that place across from the precinct. And sometimes even when Rosa pulled her away to the pool table, her eyes kept making their way across the bar and falling on his lips, full and soft and warm and lonely and… _moving._ Did he just say her name? She was great at reading lips and she could _swear_ he just said her name to Charles. But then Rosa was poking her with the pool stick a little less than gently, her attention torn away from him, but her mind ever lingering. 

Sometimes, he’d lean over his desk at work, rest his forehead in his palms. He’d squeeze his eyes shut, and he just looked so tired. He hadn’t been sleeping enough, and she’d love to know why. It didn’t push any boundaries to ask him, right? But… it wasn’t really her business. Besides, what if it was about a girl or something? She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear about that. What if it was something she used to be able to help him get through, but now she wouldn’t know how to help?

Sometimes, she swore she’d catch him looking at her the way he used to. She’d pretend she didn’t see it—his eyes lingering on her, his thoughtful expression, his fingers twitching in his lap when she murmured a _fuck_ , slamming her hands on the edge of the steering wheel after they’d hit yet another dead end in a particularly trying case. She definitely saw it, but it also definitely didn’t mean anything. She just happened to be in his line of sight while he was thinking, maybe he was just rethinking something she’d said about the case, maybe she’d just startled him when she took out her frustration on the steering wheel. 

Whether real or imagined, whether it was just a stray glance or something more, just friends was hard in those moments. 

But there were no close calls. There were no drunken moments, no midnight confessions that led to more. No kisses, or almost kisses, or lingering touches. There seemed to always be a buffer between them. Rosa would pull her away when she ordered her fourth drink or Rosa would drag Jake to the bar if the group conversation took an overtly sexual turn or Rosa would elbow Jake in the ribs if his jokes or teasing or competition seemed extra honed in on Amy. Rosa must be catching onto her. She must be being way more obvious about her feelings than she thought, and Rosa was being the good friend that she is and trying to help keep things platonic. There was always someone between them in the booth at the bar. There was always someone to pop into conversations across the desk if things got a little too flirtatious. 

It was never just them. 

She missed them. She missed _him._

But they had decided together that this was the best move for them. So she’d take her stolen glances and neglected feelings, and she’d do her job. She’d take her moments with him when she could get them, a spare five minutes here and there, talking about something other than work before they were interrupted by a coworker doing what she had trouble doing herself—keeping them apart. 

At least Jake seemed to be handling it better than her. He was just his old self. He cracked jokes at every turn, took the lead in cases. He made bets and worked to constantly beat her in unspoken work competitions. He was unwavering; unabashedly Jake, and _god_ , she fucking liked him. 

Even when he teased her, even when their bets and jokes got intense, he was careful to never take anything too far. He used to slip up sometimes at work. When they were alone, a title of your sex tape was known to become a title of _our_ sex tape every now and then, or a quickly mumbled rush of some observation or plan that he had for her later that night might slip out on an off day. There was none of that now. She was rarely even the subject of those sex tape jokes now, and while she first thought that they were stupid, she had grown to miss those, too. 

Jake Peralta was the picture of professionalism, at least as far as their working relationship went. She can’t imagine that anyone on the outside would be able to tell that there was ever anything going on between them. Even Boyle had seemingly given up on the whole thing. 

She wished that didn’t make her feel like she was slowly sinking into quicksand, nothing to grip onto for stability. She wanted to grip onto _him_ for stability. But she was pretty sure that _just friends_ didn’t do that. At least not the way she was thinking. 

Just friends also wasn’t quite as much fun as she had hoped it would be. 

They had fun with the squad, sure, but it turned out that a lot of the fun that they had together (not even sex-related fun, just fun in general!) happened when they were alone doing something other than working. They’d grabbed lunch together twice outside of work as just friends, but it seemed to always lead them to an awkward, uncomfortable goodbye where they left walking in opposite directions but _god, she wanted to go home with him._

And it’s not like she could trust herself to invite him over for a movie or something. She hypothesized that he felt the same way, because he’d made no such suggestions. They knew themselves too well, knew that there was no way that they could sit together on the couch that they’d definitely fucked on and _not_ think about it. And if they were thinking about it…

She thought about things like this enough. She knew the drill. Add another tally to the _you’re failing at just being friends, you’re thinking about fucking your partner again_ list in her head, take a cold shower, and even when it doesn’t work _do not think about him when you get in bed._ She’d still think about him. How could she not? 

Maybe she just needed to get back out there. 

Maybe it had more to do with the fact that she hadn’t had sex with anyone since him than it had to do with her feelings for him. She hoped that was the case, because if this _was_ about her feelings for him, those feelings were much stronger than she’d thought, and she wasn’t sure what to do with them. Maybe if she found someone else, he wouldn’t be on her mind quite so much. That was a semi-convincing theory, at least. It was much easier to tell herself that having sex with someone else would make all the feelings for Jake dissipate, even though she knew that all of this was about way more than sex. If this had just been about sex, they wouldn’t have had a problem in the first place. 

But getting back out there meant dates. And she wasn’t interested in anyone she knew (well, anyone she knew and wasn’t intentionally being only friends with), so that meant that she would have to go out and meet new people and _ugh_ , first dates always sucked. Meeting new people _always_ sucked. 

Although meeting Jake hadn’t sucked. There was never any of that awkward, uncomfortable stuff with him. They just… _worked._

Pfft. Right, so she’d just have to find _another_ Jake Peralta. One that she didn’t work with. A guy that was kind, and funny, and respectful, and smart, and cocky, but in a way that somehow wasn’t bad? Someone who loved his work and was good at it, who looked at her with dark eyes that drew her in, whose messy curls were way more tame than the feelings he inspired in her heart, whose hands were—

Yeah. Cold shower. Cold shower.

Just friends meant pushing thoughts like these away. Just friends meant categorizing her thoughts into things she could say to him and things she couldn’t say to him. Her rule of thumb was that if she couldn’t say it to Charles, she couldn’t say it to Jake anymore, either. Same went for when she needed help with something, needed a friend. If she wouldn’t call Charles with the problem, she didn’t need to call Jake. She and Charles were friends, and she and Jake should have a nice, platonic friendship just like that. 

Just friends was trying her hardest not to gauge his responses when Gina would ask about her love life in front of him. Just friends was keeping her hands to herself, even when they were in the car alone and his shirt collar was turned the wrong way and she used to just reach over and fix the knot in his tie, but you can’t do that anymore, Ames. 

_Ames._

She could practically hear his voice saying it to her. And it still drove her crazy to hear him call her that, and that was just about the only thing from before that he hadn’t stopped doing. Apparently the nickname spanned the different forms of their relationship. And she was glad.

Although that presented her with another problem, from time to time. In the morning, for example, when they were in the patrol car, his voice was still grumpy and gruff from having just rolled out of bed, and she’d stop the car at the crime scene, but he wouldn’t budge, so she’d poke him in the side and he’d mumble out an _Ames_ , all rough and low. Her mind would immediately shoot to another scenario, his lips against her skin, his voice a low whine as he desperately repeated the name. _Ames—Ames, please._

 _Cold shower._

—

Well. 

It seemed that he didn’t know anything else, but at least he could say that he knew, with certainty, that he was an idiot. 

He thought this would be _easy._

 _Ha._

The only thing he ever found easy about Amy Santiago was falling for her. 

_Ugh._ Stupid Amy. 

It was going _fine,_ he guessed. 

Fine _enough_. Fine- _ish_. 

Amy was doing great, and that’s what mattered most. 

It had been… what, now? Three months? Around three months, he was pretty sure. He wanted to say the beginning was the hardest, but the hardest parts seemed to come and go. He ebbed into the good, flowed into the bad, the endless river of his feelings for her. 

The good. Working cases alongside her, watching her work through the problem, leaning on her for assistance when he couldn’t make his way through it alone. She was a brilliant detective, and he was lucky to have her as his partner. Their daily lunches, rushed while working through cases, quick pauses where they’d talk about something other than work as a tiny break before jumping right back into a new theory about the perp of the week. 

Games at work. Jimmy Jabs, watching her be a crazy idiot and just getting the opportunity to laugh so hard with her that he’s doubling over. Teasing and joking and downright _bullying_ , at times. _I can’t believe you called me a butthead. That’s so harsh._ The group outings with the squad, usually to Shaw’s, sometimes somewhere a little more adventurous. They tried axe-throwing once, traded wide-eyed looks when Rosa hit the bullseye even with her eyes closed. 

The bad, unfortunately, came to mind way more easily. 

Amy’s birthday. He’d spent two weeks stressing about it, trying to figure out how exactly he handled it. Did he get her a gift? Was it weird if he did? Should he just ask her? What did he get her as just a friend, that didn’t feel too… what connotation was he even trying to avoid? He ended up getting her a gift _just in case_ , leaving it at home and scoping out her reaction before ultimately deciding that he shouldn’t give it to her. It was still in his closet. He just ordered her lunch from that Polish place to the precinct instead. The whole day, every free moment was dedicated to thinking about his birthday and how she had made it the best one he’d ever had. If this was the best birthday she’d ever had, it definitely wouldn’t be because of him. And he hated that. He wanted her to have a great birthday, and he wanted to be the reason. Or at least part of the reason. 

He asked her out for drinks that night. He didn’t feel like he could just brush her birthday off. He figured maybe he’d stop at home before meeting her, grab the gift. He wanted her to feel as special as she is. Maybe that crossed a line, maybe it didn’t. He didn’t really care. 

He asked her, just casually when they were alone in the bullpen, sometime in the afternoon. Just a simple _hey, you want to grab drinks later? Celebrate your birthday?_ She hesitated, but she smiled at him. Informed him that she already had plans with a friend. He grinned at her, a _cool, cool, cool_ rolling off his tongue before he tossed out some rushed _oh, the squad’s going to miss you, we’ll have to reschedule when you can make it._ The tips of his ears were burning when Charles later let it slip that he had plans with Genevieve that night, reservations they’d made two weeks earlier, revealing that he was never going to be at the bar and essentially foiling Jake’s cover. Amy was gracious enough to not look up at him even though he was sure she’d caught it, and, of course, that tiny gesture of compassion made him like her even more.

Rewind to what she’d said. She had birthday plans with a friend. _A friend._ She didn’t say Kylie. Was it not Kylie? Was it a guy? He should _not_ care. He definitely shouldn’t ask. He _absolutely_ shouldn’t work to find roundabout ways to get her to let it slip without specifically asking the question, because that was just as bad as asking, if not worse. It was none of his business. He felt guilty at the sigh of relief that escaped him when she later mentioned that it was, in fact, Kylie that she was meeting later that night. Just friends weren’t that invested in whether or not their friends were maybe, potentially going on a date. 

Speaking of dating, more bad times. When she _was_ actually dating. Well, when she was actually going on _a date_. One date, the first date with some guy. The first date since him. Since _them_. 

Not that they dated. 

But _he_ was the last person to kiss her lips. _Was._ He wanted to be the only person to kiss her, felt a swell of jealousy within him, but they weren’t his lips to kiss. She was still the last person to kiss him, too. He wasn’t sure that he was ready to give that up yet, even if she was. 

He knew all this, by the way, because of Gina. He wouldn’t accept what she referred to as her _undercover spy work_ , in which she’d talk to Amy about her love life or things of that nature, then try to come give Jake the details, completely unsolicited. When he’d walk away or put in headphones or delete her texts without reading them because _it isn’t my business, G,_ she resorted to just asking Amy about these things while Jake was sitting directly across from her. 

Amy’s eyes would flash to his quickly, seemingly gauging him, but then she’d answer Gina’s questions. Normally when she asked, the response was something about how there was no news on the dating front. One day the reply was a soft _I actually have a date on Friday._ She didn’t look up at him at all, this time. Everyone else, on the other hand… 

He wasn’t one to crack under pressure. He didn’t waver under the gaze of every _single_ one of their colleagues. He cracked a joke. _Oh, that’s nice. Did you meet him at the binder store?_

She scoffed at him. _It’s called a stationary store, Jake. And no._ Then he had to sit through every detail of how she met her _perfect_ date, which… Maybe he was embellishing a bit, but he still hated the one sentence that she said. _We just met on a dating app, Gina. I don’t want to talk about it right now._

So she was dating again. Then he had to feel guilty over being upset about that. Which was just a roller coaster of a time for him. Rosa and Gina took him out to Shaw’s that Friday night. They didn’t see Amy. Which, he assumed, could only mean one thing. Good for her. He drank enough that night that he didn’t have to remember the rest of it. 

Some times were mixed with good _and_ bad. A cocktail of his feelings, shaken and stirred and way too strong to stomach. 

Three drinks in at Shaw’s, laughing with him as she danced in her seat. She grabbed his hand and pulled him out of the booth, and he almost had tears in his eyes from laughing so hard at _I’m teaching you to dance, Jake_ , flailing elbows and all. Charles mumbled something out about them being in love, and Rosa punched him in the side, but the damage was already done. 

Four drinks in, when her eyes always flickered to him. He knew what that meant, knew Gina’s scale system, understood exactly what that particular gaze carried. It used to be that no one was safe from Four Drink Amy’s suggestive looks, but these days, it was always him. He didn’t know what that meant, but it felt important. He wanted it to be important. His brain knew that it probably wasn’t _actually_ important, but he had a much harder time convincing his body when she was looking at him like that. 

The jokes and teasing that they always shot back and forth at one another. It was fun. It was good. But it was never just a joke. Neither of them would ever just let it go. One of them would make a joke, the other _had_ to respond. The jokes almost became a way to simply get a response, because they both knew they could get a rise out of each other with just a few words. What started as one simple line inevitably turned into a four minute conversation that ended with Rosa interrupting with a _Jake? Can I talk to you?_

That time a few weeks after her first date. He’d forced himself to go on a few dates since then. She walked into the breakroom while he was telling Charles about how _great_ his date from the night before went. Charles was practically yelling at him because _he should be going on dates with Amy_ , and he exasperatedly explained for what had to have been the four hundredth time that Amy didn’t _want_ to go on dates with him, they were just friends. 

When she walked in, Charles eyed her suspiciously, rolled his eyes at Jake, and hurriedly walked out. She sat down at a table adjacent to him, trying to look nonchalant, but he could see that she had something on her mind. He was just about to make his bet on how long it would be before she said it, when she looked up at him. 

“So you’re dating?” 

He raised his eyebrows. He stumbled over his words a little. Should they be talking about this? “Uh… yeah. I’ve gone on a few dates.” 

She smiled tightly at him. “I heard you tell Charles that your date last night went well.” 

He smiled. It hadn’t actually gone well. He knew he couldn’t say that to Charles unless he wanted a lecture on how none of his dates would ever go well again unless they were with Amy, so he told him that the date was great. Could he back out of that now? “Yeah, it went pretty well.” 

She looked down at the table, but her smile grew a little. He wanted it to be a sad smile, but he was pretty sure he was just tricking himself into believing it was. 

“I’m sorry, we don’t have to talk about this—”

She met his eyes again. “I’m happy for you, Jake.” 

He studied her for a moment. “You are?” 

Her soft laughter echoed into the quiet room. God, he missed that. “Of course I am. I want you to be happy.” 

He grinned at her, a giant, fake grin because his dates had been going terribly and now he had to pretend they were going well and, ya’know, return the favor by asking about her dates which were probably going great because she’s amazing and— “Thanks. What about you, you’ve been dating too, right?” 

She laughed, one loud sound that startled him. “My dates have been pretty bad.” 

That shouldn’t make him happy. It didn’t. He wanted her to be happy, obviously. But he did have to put a little bit of effort into keeping a crooked smile off of his face at hearing that he wasn’t the only one having bad dates. “They’ve been bad?” 

She shook her head, then stood up and made her way over to his table. “Jake, they’ve been awful. This one guy— _middle of the date_ —started doing magic tricks at the table. In a _nice_ restaurant.” Jake’s laughter interrupted her, and she made a face at him. “It isn’t funny. He spilled the entire decanter of water all over me, then took off his shirt so I could use it as a towel.” 

Jake tipped his head back, trying and failing at subduing his laughter, but then she started laughing with him, and they were all giggles, leaning onto the table and trying to catch their breath. 

When they finally calmed down, she looked at him more seriously. “But I’m really glad things are working out for you. You deserve to be happy.” 

His laughter was quiet. “Ames, please. My dates have been terrible.” She raised an eyebrow at him. “I only told Charles it went well so he’d stay off my back about y—” he caught himself. He couldn’t say _so he’d stay off my back about you_. He coughed, like he’d swallowed wrong or something. “Sorry. So he’d stay off my back about yams.”

“Yams?” She raised an eyebrow at him. 

“Yeah.” Jake scoffed. “He keeps bugging me to join this weird singles cooking class that revolves around using yams. I guess they’re an underutilized flavor? It’s called Yourself and Yams: Getting to Know Them.” 

He was already kicking himself. _Fuck._ He took it too far by tacking on the name. She could totally look it up if she didn’t buy it. 

She laughed. “God, that’s the most Charles thing I’ve ever heard.” 

He’d never felt quite this grateful to know his best friend this well. “He wants me to give him the inside scoop. He feels like it’s dishonest to take the class, since he’s not actually single.” 

She shook her head as she laughed at him. “So what happened on your date? I shared my war story. Your turn.” 

He sighed. “So, I get there, and you know everything’s going normal enough. About twenty-five minutes in, I notice she has a ring on. Like, it doesn’t look exactly like a typical wedding ring, but it’s definitely in the same place where a wedding band would go.” She raised her eyebrows, and he nodded. “Right? So, ya’know, I gave it a while. We were laughing, she seemed pretty interested in my work stories… And then she invited me back to her place.”

He watched Amy closely. Her eyebrows raised when he said it, but that was the only noticeable change on her. “This is supposed to be a bad date?” 

He made a face at her, and she laughed. “Listen. I was still curious about the ring, so I finally just asked her. Like, ‘hey, I noticed you have a ring on your finger, is that just one of those things to stop guys from bothering you, or…?’”

He paused for a long time, trying to build suspense. Amy leaned in. “So? Was it?” 

He shook his head slowly. “No. It was not.” He laughed softly to himself. “It turns out that she was married. She and her husband had been trying to find someone to, uh…” He trailed off, shaking his head at the memory. “So her husband could watch. Her exact words were,” he paused to pull an accent, one that didn’t even vaguely resemble the woman from his date, but one that he knew would make Amy laugh, “‘he gets off on watchin’ me with other men.’”

Amy’s jaw dropped the second he mentioned the husband watching. She covered her mouth, laughter bubbling out, then around her laughter managed out, “Well, did you do it?” 

He made an exasperated face, then shook his head at her, laughing. “What? Of course I didn’t do it. Jeez, Ames. I have performance anxiety. Only at my best for an audience of one.” 

She laughed at him. “I mean, technically she would have been a participant, so he _was_ an audience of one.”

He laughed with her. “You know what I mean.” He paused and he sighed softly. “Voyeur couple definitely beat out girl who cried when she found out I was a Gemini, but all three dates have been bad.” 

She sighed with him. “Yeah, both of mine have sucked. Dating is hard.” 

“Dating _is_ hard.” He shrugged. “Wish I could skip it all, ya’know? Just get to the good parts.” She was giving him a weird look when he glanced back up at her. “What?”

“What are you guys doing?” Rosa had been walking past the breakroom, but redirected when she noticed the two of them in there alone. Her questioning glance was thrown directly at Jake. He’d asked her to be a buffer between Amy and him, and she took the job more seriously than he originally thought she would. 

Amy jumped when Rosa walked in. She began fidgeting with her sleeve. “Nothing. Just, Jake’s a Gemini.” Rosa made a face at her, like that was a stupid thing to be talking about. Amy cleared her throat. “Anyways, I think I’m just gonna go out for lunch. I’ll see you guys later.” 

She didn’t look back up at him as she walked out of the room. Jake stared at the table until she was gone, then slowly turned to look at Rosa. She had her arms crossed, one eyebrow raised. 

_“I know.”_ He sighed as he stood up, then silently walked out of the room, leaving Rosa huffing to herself. 

Then there was Thanksgiving. He was coerced into going to the party at Amy’s, and when he said coerced, he wanted to be clear that there wasn’t any convincing, simply forcing, by Holt. He knew it was a bad idea, but Holt said something about respect and his _serious expectation_ that he would be present. He hadn’t been to her apartment since they’d decided to just be friends. But it’s not like he could tell Holt why he didn’t want to go to Amy’s. So… He went. 

And just as he suspected, it was hard for him. He’d kissed her there, leaning against the counter where Charles was peeling potatoes. He’d held her there, done way more in the same spot where their captain was sitting. Her bedroom door was shut, but that didn’t shield him from the memories. 

It actually wasn’t _that_ bad. The first few minutes were really difficult, but he got over it quickly. It was just in moments like these, where he was alone in his room, thinking about their friendship and all of the twists and turns, where he visualized every difficulty as monumentally larger than it actually was. In the moment, these things would sting, but it was quick. Like ripping off a bandaid. Then it was over. Everything was fine. He dwelled on missing her for two minutes when he got to her apartment on Thanksgiving, had a very vivid memory of kissing her against her bedroom door once, and then he laughed and joked and had fun with his family, and everything was fine. 

But when he remembered it now? He knew it wasn’t an accurate portrayal of the experience. He was _there_. But he doesn’t remember it being two minutes. He remembers thinking about it the entire time he was there. He remembers bumping into her while Gina was chasing him with a new lipstick, saying she needed to test the shade on his lips to really see the effects of the color. Amy was holding a bowl of mashed potatoes, and he rescued the bowl with one hand when he collided with her, the other reflexively moving to her hips to keep her upright. They stared at each other, both surprised by the quick interaction. Gina chuckled quietly, mumbling just loud enough that everyone could hear her. _You know, on second thought, Amy’s lip color would look way better on you, anyway._

So, then that was on his mind. And in reality, it was another two minutes of him feeling uncomfortable. He blushed, he knew he did, his face was burning, and then he caught that shade of pink spreading across Amy’s cheeks and if he hadn’t been blushing before, he definitely was after that, and he tried to crack a joke to break the tension but he stumbled through it and then Rosa laughed at him and Boyle was looking at them in that way he always did and… It was two minutes. They avoided each other’s eyes for two minutes, and then everyone had something else to focus on. Really, he knew that’s all it was. But when he remembered it, it was all so clear. It didn’t feel like two minutes. 

When he remembered it, it wasn’t just the bits and pieces. It was their full story, stretched out behind his eyelids. The meeting, the hotel room, the Christmas party. His car, her shower, her living room. The first soft kisses, the first rules, the first times they were broken. Working with her, becoming her friend, falling for her. His dad, his birthday, her conference. The cuffs. Her parents’ house. 

It was a million tiny details over the course of the past year. It was joy and pain, desire and defiance, comfort and… _love?_ Maybe. He was sure that wasn’t it, but the word always swirled around his mind when he was thinking about this. Why else would he still be so stuck on her? 

But that was ridiculous. 

There was a perfectly reasonable explanation for why he was still so enamored by Amy Santiago. Proximity. They were together _all the time_. For a moment after the fiasco at her parents’ house, he didn’t feel quite so strongly about her. But as time went on, the pain dulled, and the forgiveness really washed over him. After she had his back time and time again—against perps, every day on the streets, against Major Crimes, _hell_ , even against _Holt_ a few times—he was more sure than ever that what happened that night was an outlier for her. His feelings crept back up on him when he had his guard down, and while her smile never stopped tugging at his heart, he definitely noticed the difference now versus those days and… it was a lot for him to take on. 

But practice makes perfect, right? Sure, he was finding it hard to get over her because of how much time he spent with her, but he was sure that if he just kept at it, if he just spent _enough_ time with her, he’d stop noticing all the cute things she did and start just… like _really_ start being her friend. Without hidden feelings. 

But he just found it all so easy with her, which only made it all harder. Rosa would glare in his direction every time he’d flirt with her, which meant that Rosa was glaring at him for, like, sixty percent of his day, most days, but the next time Amy did something cute, he was right there to comment on it. And it wasn’t just him. It’s not like he didn’t notice when she was watching him, or when she’d follow him into the evidence room under the guise of searching for a different file, but then they’d have two minutes alone to laugh and talk before Rosa was standing in the doorway with knowing eyes. And it’s a good thing, because he was fairly certain that any longer than two minutes alone with her where they weren’t specifically preoccupied with work would end with him ruining everything by kissing her. And, to be fair, he was also fairly certain that she wouldn’t stop him if he tried.

He was demonstrating stronger will now than he had been the first time they’d decided to be just friends. He was taking precautions now that he hadn’t taken then, because now, he _agreed_. He could see how sleeping with her could negatively affect their work, because he’d been hurt by her in that situation twice. It’s not like working with her immediately after was easy, and since his feelings for her hadn’t died down in the slightest, it was clear that they’d never be able to sleep together again without history repeating itself in record time. 

Before, he respected her, but he thought calling it off was dumb. So when they got drunk and she started initiating something with him, the only obstacle he had was his concern for her feelings. He didn’t want her to regret it, didn’t want her to wish they hadn’t pushed their boundaries. Now he had to worry about that, but he also had to worry about himself. He didn’t want to be back in that place with her again. He didn’t want to be driving home, a million bad thoughts racing through his mind, the only thing he could think of that would make him feel better being the exact thing that made him feel bad in the first place. 

They used each other like a crutch before. In ways, he was still doing that now. Avoid having sex with her, because you know when you have sex with her, you’ll get hurt. And if she hurts you, and if you’re mad at her, you won’t be able to be her friend. And being her friend, having her in _some_ capacity… is essential.

He wanted to be able to keep the parts of her that made him feel better. Through their friendship, he was pretty sure he could do that. And maybe that was selfish. But he didn’t mind if she was selfish in that way with him, so he hoped that she wouldn’t mind, either. He hoped that Amy wanted to keep him, in some way or the other. He hoped that she carried little pieces of him the same way that he carried pieces of her. And maybe that was selfish, too. It didn’t matter, because he knew that all of this had meant more to him than it ever meant to her. Which was fine. He didn’t want her to struggle. He was glad that she wasn’t. 

But again, selfishly, he kind of wished that it wasn’t just him having trouble. He wanted to have been that important to her. She was just as brave and smart and professional as always, and he couldn’t see any signs that the distance between them was wearing her down. 

Good. Good for her. 

The only time they ever had a moment… A close call, a time when he thought that maybe they’d gotten so close that they’d threatened the friendship that they’d been so careful to preserve, was Thanksgiving. 

He never would’ve made a joke about it, because he knew she was sensitive about the subject, but the thought had crossed his mind. And to be fair, he thought he was doing a much better job than everyone else at hiding how truly terrible the meal she’d made was. About ten minutes into the meal, someone finally cracked and let it slip that the food was basically inedible, and while part of him was glad that he didn’t have to choke down another bite of what looked like mashed potatoes, he truly would have eaten every bite if it prevented the look of disappointment that flashed across her face. 

The disappointment decidedly turned into something even more despondent, and he genuinely could’ve kissed Charles for suggesting that they head to Shaw’s to finish Thanksgiving there. She took a little bit of convincing, but eventually they were all headed toward the bus, the little bit of drinking done at Amy’s being a solid base for the drinking he was sure would continue at the bar. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders as they walked out into the chilly November air, and he ignored Rosa’s glances as they walked to the bus stop. Amy smiled at him, and he talked to her about anything other than her cooking, because she needed cheering up, and he knew that was one area he could provide help in. He was just being a good friend. That’s it. 

And it seemed to work. By the time the bus came, they’d detached, and she was back to being a part of the group like she had been a few hours earlier. In fact, she may have even been more relaxed now—because the worst had already happened, and she no longer had the stress of hosting—not because he’d had his arm around her. 

And things were going pretty well at the bar. It was a little busier than they’d expected it to be. The night before Thanksgiving is the busiest bar night of the year, but it seemed like a lot of the patrons from the night before stuck around for the holiday this year. The end of the football game was still playing on the TV up by the bar, so a lot of people were congregating up there. 

For the most part, the group was all joking and talking amongst themselves, but he saw Amy staring off, looking distracted a few times. When she excused herself to go grab a drink from the bar instead of waiting for their server to make his rounds back to their table, he made the quick decision to follow her. 

“Jake.” Rosa looked at him, eyebrows scrunched up. 

“I know.” He nodded at her. “It’s fine, Diaz.” He grinned at her, everyone else busy talking. “A thousand push ups.” 

Rosa sighed. “You ate way too much of those baking soda mashed potatoes to do a thousand push ups, Jake.” 

His smile spread wider across his face. “Well then I guess it’s a good thing I won’t have to do them, huh?” 

She shifted her attention back away from him, taking a sip of her beer and returning her focus to the group. That was the closest thing to her approval he was going to get, and while he didn’t _need_ her approval, he had asked her to be a buffer between them and she’d been being a really good friend, so he felt like he kind of owed it to her to at least _attempt_ to get her blessing. But even if she had fought him on it, he was going to follow Amy up to the bar. 

“Hey,” he said softly, slipping into the space next to her. The area was pretty crowded, so his arm brushed against hers. “You okay?” 

She looked up at him as though he’d snapped her out of her thoughts. “Hey.” She smiled bashfully. “Yeah, I’m fine.” 

“You sure?” He could see right through her. She nodded, but her attention was set back toward the floor. “Hey.” He waited until she looked up at him. “You know none of them care, right? They’re having just as much fun here as they were at your apartment.” 

“I mean, I kind of ruined Thanksgiving. I don’t know why I thought hosting at my apartment would be a good idea. I mean, we both know I can’t cook.” She sighed. 

“Ames,” he laughed gently, “you didn’t ruin Thanksgiving.” He thought back to the speech Holt had given him when he had been trying to get out of coming to this party at all. He shrugged. “The nine-nine’s a family. And I don’t have a lot of experience with big families, but I know you do. And I think from a few stories you’ve told me, you know that they can be messy.” He raised his eyebrows. “Right?” 

She bit her lip, trying to suppress her smile. He wasn’t sure what she was thinking about, but his mind was settling in on her brothers teasing them in a big group on her parents’ back porch. “Yeah.” 

“And the messiest days become the best memories. So don’t think of it as ruining Thanksgiving. Think of it as giving us a really fun memory to look back on next year.” He nudged her gently. “And maybe next year, we just make your dulce bars and leave the rest of the cooking up to Charles.” 

She rolled her eyes and shook her head, but she laughed with him. She looked over at him for a moment, an easy smile on her lips. “Thank you, Jake.” 

Her fingers brushed against his, and he was lacing their fingers together before he even had a second to think about it. By the time it hit him that he’d made a mistake, there was a big commotion going on. The people crowding around the bar began yelling, some throwing their arms up and, in turn, shoving amongst the crowd. He didn’t even have time to decide whether or not he should awkwardly pull his hand away, because she tugged her hand out of his to try and steady herself as the large man next to her was shoved into her, sending her flying straight into Jake’s chest. 

This left them face-to-face, her hands on his chest, his hands on her waist, the crowd around them still going wild over whatever had happened in the football game. He felt her chest rise against his as she took a deep breath, but she made no effort to pull away. Her eyes flashed down to his lips, and _fuck_ , he had made a mistake. He didn’t care that they were supposed to be just friends. He didn’t care that this could end badly. He didn’t care that the whole squad was probably watching from the table. He didn’t care that if he leaned forward two inches, he’d have to do a thousand push ups. He wasn’t sure how many push ups he’d be willing to do if it meant he got to kiss Amy, but a thousand didn’t seem like enough. He couldn’t remember ever wanting to kiss her as badly as he wanted to in that moment. 

She cleared her throat, seemingly being snapped back to the reality of their situation, and if he hadn’t been so stuck in his thoughts, he would have already kissed her. She still hadn’t pushed away when she practically whispered an apology, and he only reluctantly let her slip out of his hands when she finally pulled back. 

He swallowed thickly. “No problem.” 

He had an opportunity to kiss her, and he wanted to, and he was, like, at least sixty percent sure that she wanted him to. And yet he didn’t. He should probably feel good about that choice. He _did_ feel good about that choice, he _supposed_. That meant that he didn’t just ruin their friendship. That meant that they didn’t just take ten steps back. That meant that he’d grown, which should be important to him, probably. 

But he didn’t feel good, even though he knew he had done the right thing. Their friendship was more important than a kiss that would have lasted no more than fifteen seconds. That kiss wouldn’t have led to anything more than an awkward conversation with the entire squad. That kiss wouldn’t have given him the answer that he wanted from her. That kiss wouldn’t have changed anything—except that three months of working toward a healthy friendship would have been wrecked. 

So it was _good_. Why didn’t it feel good? And unlike some cooking mishap, he couldn’t just shake this feeling off with a joke. When Amy made her way to the bathroom, Rosa passed him a shot. 

“You look like you could use this.” 

He accepted it silently, knocking it back and then returning his gaze to the table. “Thank you.” 

“I’m not going to say I told you so.”

He tilted his head to the side, not meeting her eyes. “You kind of just did.” 

She laughed quietly. “Yeah, I guess you’re right. At least you don’t have to do a thousand push ups.” 

He shook his head at her, unable to resist smiling at that. 

They were making progress. He was making progress. And sometimes, progress had setbacks. 

Setback, after setback, after setback, after setback. 

—

If there was one thing you needed to know about Rosa Diaz (you _didn’t_ need to know one thing about her), it was that she loved her friends. 

But god, she was friends with stupid people. 

Being partners with Charles was basically like having a front row seat in a live studio audience of what he calls _the greatest love story of all time_. Rosa, on the other hand, thought of it more as _what stupid thing are Jake and Amy going to do today?_

It was bad enough when she had to listen to it from Charles every day, but at least then it was _only_ coming from Charles. Then Jake called her to come to the bar that one day, and since then, she’s kind of been his go-to friend to talk about what he’s still stupidly calling _just a crush_. But at that point, it was like a once every two weeks sort of thing. She never had to initiate it, which is exactly how she liked it. He’d call when he needed a friend, they’d meet at the bar and he’d talk for twenty minutes, then they’d drink for three hours, and everything was fine. 

That’s where she went wrong. She noticed that Amy had been acting a little weird, and she knew from Jake that he and Amy had called off their friends-with-benefits-ship, or whatever you want to call it. So she thought that perhaps she should check in on Amy. She’d been helping out Jake so much, it seemed, and it was so easy. She could totally handle another person with their problems once every two weeks. And she _always_ had Amy’s back. _She loves her friends, okay?_ And Jake had Rosa, but who did Amy have? _Kylie?_ Yeah, right. Rosa never trusted her. 

So she pulled Amy off to the side one day. 

“Hey, what’s going on with you?” 

“What?” She’d caught her off guard. Her eyebrows pulled together like she had no idea what she could have been talking about. “Nothing, why?” 

“Really? Nothing?” Rosa raised her eyebrows. “Because you’ve been acting weird. There’s not something bothering you?” 

She noticed Amy chewing on the inside of her lip, but she just shook her head slowly. 

“No relationship stuff? I haven’t heard you talk about any dates in a while.” Amy raised her eyebrows. “Or a problem at work, maybe?” 

Amy groaned quietly, then pulled Rosa with her into the supply closet. Rosa rolled her eyes at the drama of it all, but she went along. When they got in there, Amy leaned against a shelf. 

“It’s Jake.”

Rosa raised an eyebrow. “It’s Jake?” 

Amy looked down at the floor like she was ashamed. “Okay, don’t, like… freak out, or tell me you told me so, or whatever. But you know how Jake and I slept together last year?” Rosa gave her one firm nod. Amy sighed. “We may have, _maybe_ done it a few more times.” 

“A few more times?” She watched as Amy squeezed her eyes shut. “What exactly does that mean?” 

Amy’s eyes opened just slightly, squinting at Rosa as she reluctantly explained herself. “Uh… like, every couple days, usually, for the past… oh my _god_... eight months?” 

Rosa’s lips pulled into a little ‘o’ shape. She knew from Jake that they had been friends with benefits, that he’d wanted more, that Amy decidedly _didn’t_ , but she had no idea things were that serious. “Damn, Santiago.” 

She sounded defeated when she replied. “I know.” 

“So… what’s the problem?” 

Amy sighed again. “He likes me.” 

“And? You don’t like him?” 

She shrugged. “I think it would be better if we were just friends.” 

Rosa sat down on the upside down bucket in the corner of the room. She anticipated that they were going to be in there talking for at least a few more minutes. “But something’s bothering you, right?” 

“Yeah.” Rosa stared at her, leaning forward slightly to prompt her to continue. “I don’t know, I guess—I like him too, maybe? Or I liked how things were? But I can’t just _date my coworker.”_

“Why not? You already boned him.” 

_“Rosa!”_

Rosa shrugged. “You did. What’s the difference?” 

“He’s my partner. I can’t—what, I just… date him? You know how that would look. And you know I want to be—”

“The youngest captain in NYPD history,” Rosa finished lazily. “I know. So what do you want me to do?” 

Amy pulled at her sleeve. “You don’t have to do anything.” 

“Okay, well, I don’t want to watch you sulking around here all the time.” 

“I’m not sulking.”

“You’re not _not_ sulking.” They both sat silently for a moment, then Rosa was shuffling around as she stood up. “Alright, well let me know if you decide you want help, or whatever.” 

“Wait—” Rosa turned and looked at her, slightly annoyed. “Can I just—can I talk to you?” 

“What have we been doing?” 

“No.” Amy sighed. “Can I talk to you if I ever just need somebody? I know it’s not your favorite thing, and I have Kylie, but…” She dragged the toe of her boot across the floor. “Kylie doesn’t know Jake, so sometimes it’s hard to explain to her.” 

That felt like proof that Kylie was not to be trusted. Rosa looked at her for a moment, her eyebrow arching. “I told you I have your back, Amy.” She shrugged. “Maybe buy drinks every, like, fourth time.” 

Amy breathed out a relieved laugh. “Deal. Thank you.” 

Rosa shrugged noncommittally, then opened the door. She had been back in the bullpen for all of eleven seconds before Jake was crowding her back into the supply closet. She groaned. 

“What do you want, Peralta?”

“Were you just talking to Amy?” 

“Did you see me talking to Amy?” 

Jake looked at her as if she was stupid. “Yeah?”

“Then why are you asking me if I was talking to Amy?” 

He scoffed. “What were you guys talking about?” 

“Alright, I’m not doing this—” Rosa turned back for the door. 

“No, wait.” Rosa turned slowly, sighing as she looked back at him. “Was it about me?” 

She sighed again. “Jake, I’m not gonna tell you what Amy and I were talking about.” 

“That’s fine.” He nodded slowly. “You don’t have to. I don’t expect you to. Just…” He trailed off, then leaned in the same spot that Amy had been in just a few minutes earlier. She smirked for a second. God, they were dumb. “You know that Amy and I recently decided that we’re only going to be friends. I just wondered how she was taking it.” 

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. “But even if I did know, I wouldn’t tell you. Just like I wouldn’t tell Amy anything you told me without your permission.” 

Jake looked down at the floor. “Right. Of course. I didn’t mean—I didn’t want you to tell me like, what she’d said. Just if she’d said anything at all.” He paused for a moment, then when he realized that she wasn’t going to confirm or deny anything, he shrugged. “I guess I’m just not really taking it too well, so far.” 

As if that hadn’t already been apparent to her by the two times this month that Jake had dragged her to the bar. She glanced at the door. Now would be a really great time to make a run for it. 

But she loved her friends. 

“Do you wanna talk about it?” 

And that’s how she ended up becoming the go-to person for both Jake _and_ Amy. Stupid on her part. She was friends with stupid people, but apparently stupid attracts more stupid, because why else would she be getting every single detail of Jake and Amy’s non-sex life? The only good that came from this (aside from the whole being a good friend thing) was that she finally threatened Charles into not talking about Jake _or_ Amy with her. It turned out that even when they were being whiny or running to her to talk about how _you should’ve seen the way Jake looked at me_ or _I thought about kissing Amy for seven straight minutes on a stakeout the other day—like, it was the only thought I had for seven entire minutes, Rosa_ , it was still better coming from them than it was hearing it from Charles’s hopeless romantic perspective. 

But _fuck_ , it had become a lot. She could almost predict when one of them would be coming to her to talk. She was beginning to feel like Charles because she noticed when things would happen between them now, during briefings, across the desk from one another. She caught all the awkward moments, glared at Jake every time he flirted with Amy but he _still_ wouldn’t stop. 

The worst part was that as an outsider, she was actually kind of rooting for them. But as their friend, she was trying to help them achieve what they said they wanted. It just would’ve been nice if _they_ would also try to work toward what they said they wanted. 

Jake had asked her to be a buffer between them. He said that he couldn’t help himself when he was around her, and at first she thought that was ridiculous. As time went on, she realized that he hadn’t been exaggerating. They’d be together for two minutes and Jake would be making some flirty joke or telling a story that was clearly meant to get her attention, and both of them would giggle amongst themselves, or they’d share a look that was just a little too long, or they’d “accidentally” touch, and the touch would linger, her hand on his arm or, once, his hand on the small of her back and _how stupid were they?_

“You’re not even trying, Jake.” 

“I am!” He held up his hands as if she’d just said the worst thing in the world to him. He glanced around, making sure nobody else was going to come into the break room before he continued. “We’ve been doing, like, really good lately!”

“Yeah, because I’ve been chasing you away from her every time I see you with her.” 

“You’re totally exaggerating.” 

Rosa glared at him, then mimicked Amy’s voice as she quoted an interaction from earlier in the day. “Title of your sextape—”

“Okay, stop, you sounded way too much like her I didn’t like that at all—”

She punched him in the arm lightly, and he made a face at her and rubbed the point of contact. 

She made a face at him as she adjusted her voice to be a more dramatic version of him. “Actually, my sex tape would be called—”

“Okay, I _get it.”_ He sighed. “It’s just hard because it’s not like this is what I wanted in the first place, ya’know? I’m trying to get over someone that I never wanted to get over.” 

Rosa closed her eyes, sighing deeply. “I know. And it sucks. But this is where you guys are at. So you _have_ to get over her, Jake. And you’re not going to get over her if you’re flirting with her every chance you get.” 

He groaned. “I know. But I like flirting with her.” 

She raised her eyebrows slightly. “Yeah, and I like hitting perps with my baton, but that doesn’t mean I can just do it whenever I want to.” 

He blinked slowly, grumbling when he spoke. “That was really good perspective.” He stood up, walking out of the room with his head leaned back so that he could groan at the ceiling. “Ugh, you’re right.” 

“I always am,” she shot back without looking up at him. 

She’d put out a fire with Jake, and then Amy would set off the fire alarm. It was nonstop with them.

“This is the third time you’ve come to me to talk about him _today_. Remind me why you won’t just give up this friends thing and go for it?” 

Amy sighed. She’d explained this approximately a hundred times. “Because it’s unprofessional, Rosa. What happens if we date and then things don’t work out? It would be just like Teddy, but way worse because—”

Rosa raised her eyebrows. “Because what?” 

Amy shook her head. “Nothing.” Rosa rolled her eyes. 

“What if things did work out, though?” 

“It’s too big of a risk. And even if things did work out, don’t you think that kind of looks unprofessional in and of itself? Like, I should be able to control myself and not date a colleague. Dating colleagues isn’t really captain material.” 

“Just talk to Holt about it.” 

Amy furrowed her eyebrows. “Are you insane? Why would I talk to Holt about this?” She laughed. “Can you imagine? There’s no way he would approve of this.” 

“People date their coworkers sometimes, Santiago. If you’re doing it the right way, with the proper steps being taken, then it isn’t unprofessional and there’s _nothing_ wrong with it.” 

“But what if we do break up? I can’t imagine that things would be professional then.” 

“Okay, well the way you look at him all day right now isn’t professional, either.” 

Amy’s mouth fell open before she quickly recovered. “It’s just not a good idea.” 

“Oh my god. Whatever, Amy. But if you’re not going to date Jake, you should go on a date with someone else. Find a distraction, or someone else to fall in love with—”

“I’m not in love with him.” 

_“Whatever_. Go on a date. This weekend. Or I’ll find one for you.” 

So Amy, surprisingly enough, found a date. She half-expected her to finally admit that just friends wasn’t working, but she doubled down. She knew this because Jake came to her to talk about how Gina just asked Amy about her love life and Amy glanced awkwardly at him before confirming that she was going on a date in a few days. 

“Good for her. Like I said, you should try dating, too.” Jake sighed, and Rosa sighed, too. “It’s not like you to get hung up on a girl like this, Jake.” 

“I know.” He shrugged defeatedly. “I’m just not over her.” His voice got quieter, less discernible. “How could I be?” 

“That’s a great question. How _could you be?_ You’re still not doing anything to get over her. You’re just coming in every day and making no changes whatsoever and being surprised that you haven’t fallen out of love with her.” 

Jake’s laugh was genuine. “I’m not in love with her. It’s just a crush.” 

Rosa looked at him obviously. “I’ve had lots of crushes, and I can promise you that I’ve never looked at anyone the way you look at Amy.” 

He scoffed. “We’re different people, Rosa. We express emotion differently. Like, for example, when I’m happy, I smile, but when you’re happy, you look like you might hit me.” 

“I can’t help it if hitting you makes me happy.” Jake made a face at her. “But seriously. If you want to get over her, you have to move on with someone else. Like we talked about a few months ago, right? You can’t get over her if she’s all you think about.” 

“Yeah.” He was quiet for a moment. “But what if I go on a date and she’s still all I think about?” His eyes, previously aimed at the floor, flickered back up to Rosa’s face. “What if I try and I still can’t get over her? What if I’m not ready?” 

Rosa shrugged. “Then I guess you’ll have to move to another state and hopefully the distance will do its job.” Jake made another face at her. She laughed. “Look, Jake. If you don’t try, you’re never going to know. And clearly nothing’s going to happen between you two. So you should try.” 

He rubbed his hands over his face, groaning softly into his hands. “This sucks. But you’re right.” He straightened his posture, offering Rosa a genuine smile. “Thanks for always dealing with me.”

“I’m always right, and if you listened to me more, you’d be better off.” 

“Last week you told me I should buy a chainsaw because I never know when I’ll need it.” 

“And I stand by that.”

“How many times have you needed a chainsaw, Rosa?” 

“More times than you need to know about.” 

He narrowed his eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, then hesitated, shaking his head as he decided against whatever he was going to say. “It’s better if I don’t ask.”

Rosa gasped, her voice monotone as ever. “Wow! He learns!”

He glared at her as he walked out of the room. 

Then there was Thanksgiving. 

They’d both been on a few dates by then, though she knew that none of the dates had gone well. She had almost pointed out the obvious fact to both of them that none of their dates were going to go well, because they both only wanted to go on dates with _eachother_ , but she ultimately decided that it wasn’t her place. 

Thanksgiving brought its own series of unfortunate events. 

There was the awkward shuffle in Amy’s apartment, Jake grabbing her hips as he saved the glass bowl in her hands from hitting the floor. His hand lingered a few seconds too long, and she really couldn’t tell if Gina’s joke about Jake and Amy kissing was harmful or beneficial to her cause. 

Then there was the whole terrible cooking fiasco. She watched as Jake’s eyes stayed glued to Amy from the second somebody mentioned the food being bad. She also noticed Amy’s disappointed glances, and she’d have to remember to threaten Scully later for the whole ordeal, though it did make for an entertaining scene. That led to the walk to the bus stop, Jake’s arm wrapped tight around Amy’s shoulders. He could say it was just friendly all he wanted, but the fact that he refused to look at her while he was doing it proved what they both knew. She watched as he rubbed his hand on Amy’s bicep, and they looked exactly like the couple that they were both trying _so hard_ not to be.

Then there was the bar. She tried to warn him when he stood up. She knew it wasn’t going to end well, but she had no idea that it was going to happen like that. The opposing team scored a touchdown, and she had previously seen that they were talking and smiling at each other, but the commotion from the touchdown had everyone around them moving. Amy slammed into Jake’s chest, and a thousand push ups or not, he was going to kiss her. 

She was dumbfounded when, by some insane miracle, he didn’t do it. Or maybe it wasn’t a miracle. Maybe if he kissed her, all of this would have finally been solved and they would have finally realized how dumb they were being, and she could go back to thinking about normal things, like whatever episode of Drake’s Hollow her mother had left her a voicemail about.

Ultimately, she was glad that Jake hadn’t kissed Amy. A lot of the time, it didn’t seem like he’d achieved much in the way of getting over her, but she knew that he’d been making progress. Kissing her would have torn that all apart. But damn, did he look dejected. Of course, she took the time to tease him about how she’d been right (again), but she had his back, too. 

“I’m proud of you, dummy.” She passed him another shot. 

He groaned. “Ugh, don’t be nice to me. Unless your idea of being nice is giving me more alcohol.” 

Amy took her place next to her in the booth, and Jake quieted. The next day at work, he was back to his old self. Well, _mostly_.

She noticed that today, when Amy flirted, Jake didn’t flirt back. He’d smile at her when she’d make an attempt, then his eyes would flicker to Rosa, and he’d mumble something about needing to go get a file or something. Amy would glance over at her every time it happened. It happened four different times before lunch, and then Amy was dragging Rosa to Babylon. 

“He’s being weird, right?” 

Rosa shrugged. “It seems like he’s finally doing what you asked him to do.” 

Amy’s eyebrows drew together. “But things were fine yesterday. Do you think he’s mad at me?” 

Rosa leaned on the counter. “I’m pretty sure he’s not mad at you.” 

“Did he, like, meet somebody at the bar after I left?” 

“Amy, why do you care?” 

She made a face at her. “What do you mean why do I care?” 

“I mean exactly what I said. Why do you care if he met somebody? You don’t want to be with him.” 

Amy looked down at the floor. “It’s not that I don’t want to be with him—”

“Okay, but you don’t know what you want. Or maybe you know what you want, but you don’t think you can have it. But Jake _does_ know what he wants.”

“He does?” Amy tilted her head. “Did he say something to you?” 

Rosa sighed. “Look, if you want to know what Jake has to say, I think you need to ask him. But don’t do it unless you know what you want.” She shrugged. “It’s not going to help anybody if you make any sort of move without being sure about what you want to do next.”

“Okay.” 

“And when I say that, I mean don’t ask him about anything unless you want to pursue something with him. He knows what he wants. And you owe it to him to know what you want before you drag him into it.” 

Amy paced around the small bathroom, smoothing her hands over the already-smooth bun in her hair. She stopped and looked at Rosa, her hands falling loosely to her side. “Thank you, Rosa. For being here.”

Rosa looked down, shrugging the comment away like it wasn’t a big deal. “Sleuth sisters.” 

“I know. But you don’t have to.” She smiled tightly at her. “So thank you.”

Rosa crossed the room and opened the door. “You’re welcome, or whatever.” 

Amy smiled as she passed Rosa to go through the open door. “You loooove me,” she said in a sing-song voice. 

Rosa stopped, gripping the door tighter. Amy turned to look at her. 

“I’m going to shut this door, and if you’re still standing here when I open it in thirty seconds, I’m going to hit you.” 

She shut the door before Amy could say anything else, beginning to silently count out the thirty seconds in her head. She heard as Amy got closer to the door. 

“Okay, but I love you, too.” 

Rosa opened the door, just barely caught the sight of Amy already running around the corner. Her voice came softer from a distance away. “I’m not sorry!” 

She rolled her eyes. She loved her stupid friends. She hoped they’d get this all figured out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things I am these days: nocturnal and struggling. 
> 
> Gonna try to go back now and reply to comments from the previous chapter, so hopefully that works out!
> 
> Love you guys, thanks for reading and commenting and kudos-ing and just being all around wonderful people. ¨̮ 
> 
> Also I'm actually updating Happier again, so we'll see how that factors into the next few upcoming chapters of this fic. ¨̮ Some of the content of some of the following chapters of THIS fic makes me want to have a few done so I can post them really quickly instead of finishing a chapter and posting and finishing a chapter and posting like usual. I don't like when you guys are mad at me. ¨̮ 
> 
> Love you lil quarantine beans.


	14. funny how things never change

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> hi. 
> 
> Title from All Time Low's Trouble Is. (stream Wake Up, Sunshine because I love it sm thanks)
> 
> _All that I know is I just can't say no to you,_   
>  _Funny how things never change._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know. 
> 
> _I know._
> 
> TW: a bit of graphic violence, blood, shooting (referenced), being held at gunpoint (I think that covers all the TWs????? I apologize if it doesn't, let me know and I'll fix it)
> 
> _I know._

_Coping mechanisms._

_Now, I know you probably haven’t given much thought to this part of yourselves. Coping often isn’t something that you’re truly aware of, per se, when it happens. You do what you have to do to accept your reality and move on as best as you can._

_And most of the time, that’s fine. You don’t necessarily **have** to think about it. In most situations, with most jobs, it’s fine._

_This is different._

She still remembered this speech, almost word for word, in its entirety. The lieutenant paced back and forth, throughout the rows of desks in the room. Her peers all glanced amongst themselves warily, unsure of where this speech was going. Amy had a bit of insight, her father and grandfather both a part of the NYPD before her, her older brother sharing his own stories just a few years ahead of her. 

_You will see things, you will hear things, and you may even do things,_ he had paused, staring at them a long while for emphasis, _that will keep you up at night. And you need to be proactive, and you need to think about how you will react to those situations before they arise. You need to be in control of yourself when you find yourself in unthinkable positions._

_You need to set aside some healthy coping mechanisms. You **will** need to rely on them in the future._

She stared ahead, her eyes intent on the news broadcast in front of her. 

The steady stream of voices on the radio continued, and everyone on the squad who was present shared wary glances, glances greatly mirroring the ones she’d seen the day that she’d received that speech. They were all thinking the same thing.

She looked around the room. Rosa, Charles, Gina, Hitchcock, Scully, Terry. Captain Holt sat on the edge of a desk, staring at the floor, stone-faced. Her eyes flickered to the desk across from her, unoccupied. She had never realized that someone’s absence could carry weight. It was thick in the room, the knowledge that he was not with them. The understanding of what that could mean. 

“2873, show me going.”

“6574, show me going.” 

“1126, show me going.”

“9544.” She recognized his voice immediately, sucking in a sharp breath as he paused. “Show me going.”

No one said anything, but they all knew. 

Gina’s voice broke the silence first. “That was Jake.” 

The group maintained their heavy silence, no one sure of what to say. 

“That was _Jake_ ,” Gina repeated. “Aren’t you going to do something?” 

Holt’s voice was quiet as he regarded her. She was a civilian. She hadn’t had the training that the rest of them had been through. She didn’t have the repertoire of coping mechanisms the others were all instructed to build throughout the years. 

What she did have was an acute awareness that her childhood best friend had just walked into a building where there were at least six gunmen. At least one dead. At least two more injured. And counting. She was afraid. 

“The commissioner has us on standby,” Holt quietly explained. “Our direct orders are to stay where we are until instructed otherwise.”

“But Jake is in there!” She shouted. Amy glaced around the room, eyes around her all set toward the floor. Rosa’s jaw was set, her breathing appearing steady, but slow. Charles shook his head sadly. 

_“Useless,”_ Gina hissed, her face toward her phone as she stormed out of the room. 

Amy hadn’t said a word since she’d heard the badge number. His badge number. _Jake’s._

It felt like her chest was constricting, trying uselessly to grasp for a breath that just was not available to her. 

What was the last thing she’d said to him? 

She knew for sure what the last thing she said to him _wasn’t_. 

It wasn’t _I like you._ It wasn’t _I’m sorry._ For being so stupid, for leading you on, for pretending I didn’t have feelings for you when they’ve been here the whole time. It wasn’t _you were right_. Rules are meant to be broken, sometimes. It wasn’t _kiss me._

It wasn’t _goodbye._

She shook her head. She couldn’t think like that. Couldn’t think about losing her partner, her friend, couldn’t think about losing Jake. Coping mechanisms evaded her. She scanned through her list in her head, trying helplessly to cling to something of substance. 

_Talk to a friend._

She glanced around the room, faces all resembling hers to varying degrees. They were all sharing her fears, fears that may have even been worse for them. They’d been his colleagues for years. His partners. His leaders. His friends. Even Rosa, who’d met him years before, who’d faced the coping speech with him by her side. 

_Meditation._

She shook that thought out of her head immediately. There was no point. She couldn’t tolerate being in complete silence, alone in a room, the only thought in her mind on a loop. _What if dies, what if he dies, what if he dies?_

_Organization._

Her shaky fingers wouldn’t allow her to do anything of use with her hands. Instead, she gripped the arms of her chair, her jaw set, staring down at the floor. 

There was nothing they could do. Jake was in the building. There were already casualties, and at the last update, all of the gunmen were still armed. 

They sat that way, all silent, for far too long. It was already a difficult enough situation to face, but they carried with them the knowledge that typically Jake would be the one to lighten the mood. Jake would be the one to talk them through this fear. Jake would be the one to distract them, had it been another member of the squad in that building. Jake would be the one to sit with them through it. 

So she took that thought with her, her heart heavy and her lungs still struggling to complete the only task they were required to do, and she set out to do what he would have done, though she was sure she wouldn’t be half as effective at it. He wasn’t there to be the heart of the squad. He wasn’t there to protect and comfort his friends. So she would have to do it for him. She owed him that much. 

By now, Gina was back at her desk, staring blankly at the news, waiting for updates. Everyone’s attention shifted to Amy as she stood up, making her way across the room to Gina. Without a word, she sat down next to her, grabbing her hand lightly. 

Gina glanced at their hands for a moment, then turned her attention back to Amy’s face. For a second, she was worried that she’d done the wrong thing. Then Gina was pulling Amy in for a hug, silent as she buried her face in her shoulder. Then Rosa joined them, then Charles. Eventually everyone was there, all grouped up around Gina’s desk. 

They all sat close together, all leaned in in heavy silence as they waited for the update, for the all clear, or for the command to join him. They were _not_ waiting for bad news. There wouldn’t be any bad news. Not any worse news. Not regarding Jake Peralta. 

It was over an hour before the first gunman had been tackled and arrested. Just under two and a half when the last one surrendered. More shots had been fired, but nobody else had been harmed. 

The stress emanated from the group in waves, unshakable even after the confirmation that Jake was, in fact, okay. Holt spoke with him briefly, confirming that he was safe, but he was going to head home for the night. He probably wouldn’t be at work the next day. They should give him space for the night. 

And Amy Santiago was known for following orders. Especially orders from an NYPD captain. _Especially_ orders from Captain Raymond Holt. 

So why, then, did she find herself propelled toward his apartment? 

Her eyes were heavy with tears that she hadn’t let fall, her shoulders bearing the weight of what it would mean if he hadn’t come back. The tears threatened to spill over as she thought about the proximity to a reality where she would never see him smile again, never hear his laugh as he made fun of her, never feel his arms winding around her waist. 

She realized, with certainty, that it was not a future she wanted to experience. 

She didn’t have a plan when she got there. Her feet pushed her forward of their own volition, not even stopping to ask her brain for permission to climb the stairs to his door. Then she was knocking, waiting unsurely because perhaps Holt was right, maybe she should have given him some space. If he wanted her company, he would have called her. 

But then the door opened. 

Jake stood in front of her, his hand on the doorknob. He looked _exhausted._ He had just showered, damp hair just beginning to dry into its usual, fluffy curls. His eyes betrayed him, dark and downtrodden as he looked back at her, but the unmistakable softness that he always had for her was there. It felt like it had been a year since the last time she had seen him, just earlier that day.

He didn’t smile as they looked at one another. He didn’t say anything. He just stood there, looking at her in somber silence. She looked back at him, her breathing uneven, and her mind didn’t return to the uneasiness, the uncertainty of why she came there in the first place. All she could think was _Jake_. Then her feet were projecting her forward until she was crashing against his chest, his arms wrapping around her without missing a beat. 

Her arms wound around his waist as she buried her face in his chest, and the tears that she’d held back all day flowed freely. He didn’t say anything as he welcomed her to him. He dragged his fingers through her hair, wild from the constant attention her hands had been providing it with as she awaited his return. 

He didn’t tell her it was okay. He didn’t shush her softly. He didn’t utter a single syllable to her. He leaned against the door, his hand moving away from her long enough to lock it. They stumbled along the familiar path to his bedroom, arms wrapped tight around one another, silent save for her quiet crying. 

He pulled her into bed with him, holding her against his chest tighter than he’d ever held her before. She felt his shaky breathing as he sucked in weak, tearful breaths, and he rubbed her back gently. His lips trembled slightly as he pressed them to her forehead. _He_ was comforting _her_. After everything he’d been through that day. 

They didn’t have to say any of the words. They knew. They had both been afraid. She was afraid for him, afraid of losing him. It had been questioned in the past, rules broken, boundaries pushed and toyed with by both of them, and it was apparent to her now more than ever that what was happening between them had never really _just_ been sex. She had denied it before, but there was no denying it, now. 

The calm that washed over her when she was finally standing in front of him proved it. The tears that she couldn’t stop from flowing, a mixture of relief and the breakdown of the self-control she’d been exhibiting all day, reinforced the truth she’d been avoiding. Tears pricked in her eyes the second she heard his voice on the radio, but she held her breath and she held Gina’s hand and she held it together. When she saw him, she crumbled. He wrapped her in his arms, and it was like no matter how close she held him, it didn’t feel real. His t-shirt smelled like him, and she buried her face in the crook of his neck, breathing him in as they settled into his bed. As his lips pressed against her forehead, she wondered if this was all just some crazy dream that she would wake up from, her breath falling faster than normal as she sat up in her bed, alone.

He was shaky, but strong as he kissed her, and his lips tugged her straight back to reality. He moved slowly, determinedly. His lips pressed against hers, and she conformed to his gentle demands. He held her face with both hands, and despite the slow, sweet kisses they shared, they were breathless. She nuzzled her face against his, and he wiped away one of her tears with the pad of his thumb, looking into her glistening eyes before he kissed her again.

Coping often isn’t something you’re truly aware of, per se, when it happens. 

You do what you have to do to accept your reality and move on as best as you can. 

He undressed her slowly between kisses. He took his time, a button every minute or so. There were no real expectations between them, just an unspoken desire to be _closer_. She wanted to be close to him, in whatever way she could be. She unbuttoned her pants when his fingers hesitated at her waist, and he helped her to shimmy them off, careful not to move his lips away from her as he did. He broke the kiss long enough to peel his shirt off. Her fingers rushed to her lips when the dim light hit his newly exposed skin, a soft gasp escaping. 

“Jake…” 

Bruises bloomed across his ribs, dark purples into angry reds. Her breathing got shakier, her fingertips ghosting across his skin, still warm underneath her touch. She traced the outlines, the light purple watercolor bleeding into his pale skin, the two squared-off centers of the bruises, darker than any other places. She’d had similar bruises. Impact from a gun. He was hit with it, or it was jammed into his ribs, dug in there, likely while rushed threats were made. The thought had her vision blurring with tears again. 

“I’m okay,” he whispered.

“You weren’t wearing your vest.” It wasn’t a question. She could clearly see that he hadn’t been.

His hand moved over hers, his fingers wrapping around hers. “I’m okay,” he repeated. 

Her eyes stayed aimed down at his chest. She swallowed the lump in her throat, nodding her head slowly. He was okay. But her eyebrows were still pinching together, her eyes still welling up with tears again. 

“Hey, hey.” He sat up, shifting to pull her into his lap. “Don’t cry.” He held her face, brushing the tears away with his thumb as they fell. She ducked against his chest, releasing a deep, broken breath. He wound his other arm around her waist, his hand still intent on cradling her face as he rocked slightly. He pressed a kiss onto her hair.

He gave her a moment, silence enveloping them again as he held her. Then he was looking into her eyes, chasing the remnants of tears away. “I’m okay, Ames. I’m here with you.” 

Something twisted inside of her at that, and instead of crying more (which she felt compelled to do), she closed the distance between them. Her hands found his face, fingers rubbing against his jaw just as gently as she kissed him. There was familiarity in each movement as they rediscovered one another, his tongue only hesitating briefly at her lips before meeting hers. 

She resituated herself in his lap, turning so that she was straddling him, deepening the kiss as she did. He waited until she was timidly tugging at the waistband of his sweatpants before he continued the process of undressing her. He pulled out of the kiss, looking into her eyes as he cupped her face with both hands. He pressed a chaste kiss to her lips, then nuzzled his nose against hers. 

Then he was ghosting kisses across her collarbone, pressing soft, warm kisses along the edge of fabric as he worked to unclasp her bra—which took him a second. He was rusty, _sue him._ He guided the straps off of her shoulders, his mouth intent on kissing, licking, softly nipping at every centimeter of her newly exposed skin. 

He tipped her back into the mattress, trailing his kisses lower. She was reminded of his bruises when he pressed kisses into the corresponding places on her ribs. His hands were sure, nothing shaky about him as they slid down her sides. He’d just made it to her waist when she reached down and tugged gently at his curls, his eyes immediately shifting up to her face. She raised her eyebrows at him, and he pressed a few more kisses across her skin on his way back up to her. 

God, she’d missed kissing him. He did it so well, knew her so well. Even after all this time apart, he held her just right, lips providing the perfect pressure at any given moment. He knew exactly when to push for a little more, exactly when to back off enough for her to breathe, exactly when to let her take control. 

This time, she didn’t want any of the control. 

She only wanted him. 

When she shifted underneath him to pull off her underwear, he followed her lead, tossing his off the edge of the bed to join hers on the floor. He kissed her, long and undemanding. He looked into her eyes, his hand gently cupping her face, and she returned his gaze, nodding her consent as her fingers laced into his hair. Their eyes remained trained on one another, attention unwavering as he pushed into her. Her eyes fluttered shut, a soft gasp escaping her lips, and he stilled, giving her a moment to acclimate. She moved her hand to his face, her fingertips following his cheekbone before she nodded at him again, pulling him in for another kiss as he slowly pressed forward. 

The only sound in the room was their breathing, shaky and uneven, paired with the sounds of each kiss that they shared. They held each other close the whole time, unwilling to let one another go, to present the opportunity that they could once again be faced with the loss of something they hadn’t even named yet. 

This wasn’t about pleasure, though they were both softly humming and sighing against one another’s skin. It was about a feeling far more powerful than the ones they’d proven time and time again that they could inspire in one another. It was being there for each other, relief and distraction and tenderness, comfort offered through careful placement of hands, foreheads tipped together while they shared each breath. 

He tasted every word she whispered, secrets meant only for him. He clung to her as he climaxed, buried his groan against her neck, littered kisses onto her shoulder, all over her face, against her lips. She whispered his name once, a short, quick gasp as she followed. He held her, strong, but tender. His kisses slowed, and he dipped his head into her neck. His shaky breathing slowly morphed into something that felt a little more labored, and in no time, she was cradling him against her. 

They were wrapped in his sheets, his head on her chest, and her fingers threading carefully through his hair. His slow stream of warm tears ended as quickly as it began. He sniffled every so often, interspersed with satisfied hums as her nails lightly traced the back of his neck, back up through his hair. She kissed his forehead. 

Fuck rules. Fuck just friends, and fuck benefits, or whatever the fuck they had been trying to be in the past. She was going to stay the night. They could face exactly what that meant in the morning. But for now, she held him in her arms, his breathing slowing as he faded out of awareness. 

She would spend hours holding him like that, staring up at the ceiling while he snored softly into her chest. The thought of falling asleep haunted her, as if when she woke up, the moment would be lost forever. 

They lay together, holding one another, and even as he fell asleep, they both knew that things between them would never be the same. They just knew. 

She thought they just knew. 

So why is she alone in his bed? 

The light streamed into the room, chirping birds on the windowsill forcing the remnants of sleep out of her. She peeked into the room, squeezing her eyes shut tight to keep the sun out. She slept in—she hadn’t meant to. She must have forgotten to turn on her alarms, what with all the commotion of the previous day. She hummed, a quiet, sleepy sound, and she snuggled into the blankets, scooching backwards. She expected to bump into Jake, but she didn’t. She patted the bed to her side without turning, searching for him. Finally, she opened her eyes and pushed herself up to look for him. He wasn’t there. 

She got up, pulling the sheet with her to wrap around herself. Maybe she woke up when he got out of bed. She noticed on the way to the door that her clothes, which they’d previously left on the floor next to the bed, were folded on top of his dresser. His closet door was left open, and she was fairly certain that it had been closed the night before. Her mind worked to piece these details together, but she shoved the thoughts to the back of her mind as she went out to look for him. 

She expected to find him in the kitchen, cup of coffee already in his hands. But the kitchen was empty. As was the living room, as was the bathroom, as was every room in the apartment. 

He wasn’t there. 

She went back to the bedroom, in search of a note or _something_ to explain his absence. There was nothing on the bed, nothing on the bedside tables. Nothing on the dresser, next to the stack of her clothes. 

She quickly shed the sheet, began dressing faster than she was sure she ever had before. She was so stupid. She came over here during a moment of weakness for him, and yeah, he had feelings for her before, but that didn’t mean he was feeling anything for her now. They were just friends, and she came over here after something traumatic happened, and what else was he going to do? 

He was _coping_. He was stressed, and hurt, and probably scared. He needed a distraction, and she stumbled through his doorstep crying, the perfect distraction literally throwing itself at him. 

Of _course_ he didn’t ask her to leave. Of course he accepted her into his arms, of course he held her as she cried. He wasn’t a monster. And of course he kissed her. He sat through the same speech that she did all those years ago. He was seeking comfort. That’s exactly how they used to comfort each other. He was just coping. With the stress, with the pain, with the fear. They both were. 

But that didn’t mean that he felt anything for her. 

Why would he? After everything. He shouldn’t. Did _she_ even…? It would be so much easier to shove her feelings to the side and say that they were rooted in the overstimulation of all those emotions the day before. But she couldn’t say that. It wasn’t true. When faced with the thought of Jake Peralta being back in that building… She had no doubts. 

She did not want to just be his friend. She wanted him. Romantic stylez. And he no longer liked her back. She knew, because she was alone in his apartment after the night they’d just spent together. If he had been going out and returning, he would’ve left a note. But he didn’t. 

She made his bed. She wasn’t going to leave the room a mess, even if she was rushing to get out so that he wouldn’t be annoyed with finding her there upon his return. 

She would just have to suck it up. She’d see him at work tomorrow, or Monday, or whatever day he returned. She took a deep, shaky breath as an even worse thought occurred to her. Had she ruined their friendship? This had to have been too much. She let a night of emotion take over her common sense, and now she was alone in his bedroom when she should have been at work, and he was so uncomfortable about it all that he’d just completely left her there. She couldn’t imagine that he wanted to talk about this, because if he wanted to talk about it, wouldn’t he have stayed? 

This was all her fault. She had her chance, and she blew it. She let her fears get in the way and she let her life be dictated by the unknown, when he was in front of her the whole time. She had always been one to take the safe way, the predictable way, the way of least risk. She was no stranger to challenge, but this was not the first time that she’d missed out on something great because she was too afraid to take a leap of faith. 

Things would be fine, eventually. It would hurt to be around him at first, she was sure. But as time went on, it would get easier. Jake didn’t like her like that anymore. But he was safe. That’s all that really mattered. They would figure out how to get back to the good place they were in. It would take a little bit of time, she was sure. It would require an uncomfortable talk or a bit of time rife with awkward silences, but it was doable. There was only one ending to this story that wouldn’t have been tolerable, but he was okay, and everything else would be okay, too. 

It was probably for the best, anyway. She twisted the lock on his door before she darted down the stairs and climbed into her car, not looking back as she drove away. 

Dating cops was _complicated._

She’d done it before, and things ended messy. He kept coming back, no matter how much time had passed. It was just like her to move backwards, repeating mistakes like she didn’t know any better. Jake deserved better than what she and Teddy had. They both did. 

And she _did_ know better. She shouldn’t drag Jake down with her just because she had a moment of weakness. And this situation only proved how complicated things would have been between them if they had decided to try dating.

This was the right thing. Even if it didn’t feel right. This was better for them. And she was glad that Jake was able to make that decision for them, because she wouldn’t have been able to make that decision herself. Not after last night.

But he’d made the decision. All she had to do was live with it. 

She could do that. 

_Probably._

—

He sat on the edge of his bed. 

Alone. 

The note was gone. She woke up alone, and the note was too much. She had already been so weird about the possibility of them being more than friends, and he never should have left a note that suggested something like that, regardless of what he thought last night was. Regardless of what it meant to him, what he thought it meant to her. She made her escape while he wasn’t there to protest. No awkward goodbyes or uncomfortable conversations. 

He was so stupid. 

He should have known better. 

Of course she reacted that way the night before. She was emotional. They both were. She could like him as a friend, like him as a partner and nothing more, and still react that way. It made sense that she showed up at his apartment. It made sense that she cried in his arms. She was afraid. Of course she was. He would feel the same way if it had been her, or even Rosa or Charles for that matter.

She didn’t kiss him. _He_ kissed her. And it made sense that she didn’t stop him. Why would she? They’d kissed probably hundreds of times. They were both wrapped up in emotion. She probably wanted him to feel better, maybe even needed to feel better herself. The closeness, the intimacy that she’d fought so hard for so long to keep away, she welcomed it with him. Not because she wanted the intimacy, but because they needed it. It was, like, survival instinct or something. 

Part of him wondered if he should have left in the first place. He ran out to grab coffee and bagels. He thought, after the night they’d just shared, that they might need to talk. He thought maybe some coffee from her favorite little hole-in-the-wall shop would help. So he went out, not to the coffee shop that was down the street, but to the one that was twenty minutes away. He left a note, and he thought he would return to find her still wrapped up in his sheets and _god_ he should have known better, it was _Amy Santiago._

She didn’t wake up late. She only hadn’t set an alarm because of everything that had happened the night before, he assumed, and he thought that he’d come back and wake her up with a kiss to her temple and he’d give her his shirt and they’d sit on the windowsill curled up in each other sipping coffee and sharing a bagel and everything would be fine. 

He just wanted everything to be fine. 

Why couldn’t things ever just be fine? There was always _something_. 

He sighed to himself. Before he could talk himself down, a new thought occurred to him. 

Maybe she just went to work. He was supposed to have the day off, but she was still supposed to be at work today. It hadn’t even occurred to him when he left. She woke up late, because he hadn’t woken her, and she probably just rushed off to work. 

He could feel the hope rising within him as he plotted his next moves.

Although, wouldn’t she have texted him if she had only left to go to work? Or called? Something, right?

No, she was probably just so busy and preoccupied with getting to work, since she was already late. That made sense. It could all make sense. Maybe things _were_ fine.

He would just go into work. He had been thinking about coming in, anyways. He wasn’t technically on administrative leave, he was just given the opportunity to take a day, for his mental health, or whatever. He’s _great_ mentally. Why take a day off? _Crime_ didn’t take a day off. And Amy wasn’t taking a day off. So he should go in. 

What was the worst that could happen? 

He rushed to get ready, then rushed to get into the precinct. He left her coffee at home. He took a sip of his own after he showered, coming to the unfortunate realization that it was _very_ cold. He drank it anyway, hoping it would quell the nerves that had his hands fidgeting on his steering wheel, had him pressing the door open button in the elevator as soon as he felt the elevator lurch to a stop. 

What did he think was going to happen? 

She’d see him and her face would light up? She’d stop what she was doing in the middle of work to come talk to him, to see how he was doing? She’d apologize for leaving and they’d set everything straight? 

She glanced up at him, and her eyes only lingered for a moment. He watched as her eyebrows pulled together, her lips puckering into something that was somewhere between a frown and a pout. She simply looked at him, then turned to look back at her computer screen. She was thinking, and he had no idea what it was about, but he could guess that it wasn’t good based on the tension in her eyebrows. 

He wasn’t exactly sure what he was expecting, but he was fairly certain that it wasn’t _that_. He swallowed hard, walking further into the room. It was fine. Everything was fine. He made his way past her, careful to not look directly at her, and sat at his desk. 

“Jake, what are you doing here?” Gina asked from across the room. 

“Peralta?” Holt called out from his office. He walked to the door, crossing his arms. “I thought you were taking the day off.” 

Jake laughed stalely, glancing at Amy. She didn’t look up. “You know what they say, Cap. Why relax after a traumatic event when you could just dive right back into work?” He flashed a smile at Holt. Rosa’s eyebrows drew together. 

“Santiago.” 

Amy turned to face Holt, looking as though she had just been snapped out of a stupor. “Yes, sir?” 

“Keep an eye on Peralta.” 

“Yes, sir.” 

She did _not_ keep an eye on him. She looked back down at her screen, practically pretending that he wasn’t there. 

He stared at her, and he knew that she was aware of his eyes on her, but she didn’t return his gaze. That’s when he knew for sure. She definitely left. She saw the note, and she read it, and it was too much, and she didn’t just leave for work. She left _him_. Again. After last night, after all of that emotion and the tears and the way that he held her and the way that she kissed him and _fuck_ how could she make him feel like that and then just leave? How could he feel more with her than he did with women that he’d claimed to have been in love with? And how was he supposed to ever fall in love after this, when _this_ was the closest thing to love he’d ever felt? He knew that they weren’t even together and he knew that it was stupid to get so invested in her, but he couldn’t help how he felt. He couldn’t help how she made him feel. But even after last night, even after everything between them, she didn’t even like him enough to stick around and give him an explanation before leaving. 

How was he ever supposed to trust anyone enough to do anything more than that? More than just leaving? Because stupidly, _so fucking stupidly,_ he trusted _her._ His partner. His friend, he thought. But this had happened before. At his apartment, at her parents house. When things got too real, she pulled away, and there was no pulling her back. It was _just friends_ or _just partners_ or whatever the fuck it was at the time, and he was _just done_. 

He didn’t want to be friends with her if it was just always going to keep coming back to this. He didn’t want to be doing fine for months, only to stupidly sleep with her again, to inevitably get his heart broken, to set himself back to square one. He didn’t want to be her partner, where he’d have to be close to her and rely on her to have his back because _yeah_ , he was pretty sure that she would, but how was he supposed to trust her at work when their relationship outside of work was _this?_ If this is what being friends with her was like, he didn’t want it. He had enough friends. He didn’t need a friend that made him feel like this. 

His eyes flashed to Holt’s door. It was decided. He was going to ask Holt to switch their partners back. Amy and Rosa had been at the nine-nine for over six months. They had been adequately phased into the squad. There was no reason that he and Amy should be required to be partners. Besides, their partnership was always supposed to be temporary, anyway. 

He lingered for a moment, still glancing over at her. The words were on the tip of his tongue. His brain just kept repeating the same thought. _Why did you leave?_

But he didn’t ask her. What good would it do, anyway? He swallowed the feeling and turned toward Holt’s office, unsure of what he was even going to say when he got in there. 

—

She glanced up at him as he shoved himself away from his desk, the door shutting a little louder than usual when he made his way into Holt’s office. Rosa stared over at her, eyebrows raised. Amy offered a half-hearted shrug, as if that would somehow convince her that she really had no idea what was going on with Jake. As if she hadn’t been late to work that morning, as if it wasn’t only her third time ever being late in all of the time that Rosa had known her, as if all three of those late scenarios weren’t directly related to Jake. 

A few minutes went by, Amy practically incapable of focusing on the work in front of her because her thoughts just kept returning to Jake and _what went wrong?_ Why did he leave? She kept replaying the night. Was it something that she’d done?

Maybe it was just too much for him last night. Maybe he really just wanted to be friends, and while he welcomed the intimacy as a form of comfort after that _really_ stressful situation, maybe he was doubling down on—

“Santiago, Diaz, Boyle.” Holt stuck his head out of his office door. “My office, please.” 

They all exchanged glances. She tried to shake the feeling in the pit of her stomach as she timidly walked toward the office. Jake didn’t look up at her when she walked in. She sat in the chair next to him. Rosa and Charles walked in and sat on the sofa against the wall. 

“Yes, sir?” 

Holt looked amongst them all for a moment, then nodded his head to himself. “Detective Peralta has brought it to my attention that we originally agreed that these partner pairings would be temporary. He feels that the two of you, Diaz and Santiago, have been here long enough to have grown acclimated to our precinct, and therefore can go back to being partners. Charles, you would then be paired with Jake again—”

 _“Woo!”_ Charles erupted behind them, making both Jake and Amy jump. “The dream team is back, baby!” He clapped his hand on Jake’s shoulder. 

Holt stared at him, mildly unamused. “I was _going_ to ask for everyone’s thoughts on that. I suppose we know Detective Boyle’s thoughts.” He waited a moment. Amy and Rosa exchanged glances. “Detective Diaz? Detective Santiago? What are your opinions?” 

They were both silent for a moment. “Uh, yeah,” Rosa finally broke the silence, “I feel well-acclimated. Nothing was really too different from our old precinct.”

“Great.” He paused a moment, then when he realized that Amy wasn’t going to speak, he prompted her. “Santiago?” 

Amy blinked, trying her hardest to make her voice sound stable. It came out much weaker than she’d hoped. “Uh… Yeah, yes. I also feel well, uh… acclimated.” 

“Great. Good. Then your temporary partnerships can be dissolved and you can return to your previous partnerships.”

After a beat, Jake nodded. “Great.” 

“Good.” Amy echoed, but it sounded hollow even to her. 

Rosa and Charles glanced at each other uncomfortably. 

Holt narrowed his eyes, looking decisively between Jake and Amy. “Is there something going on that I need to be made aware of? As your commanding officer, it’s important that I am made aware of the goings-on of the precinct. That includes any…” He paused uncomfortably, searching for the right words. “... _interpersonal relationships_ amongst colleagues. Specifically those of a… _romantic nature,_ should such relationships arise.”

Amy looked down at her lap. Jake maintained eye contact with Captain Holt. “I can assure you that there is nothing you need to be made aware of—now _or_ in the future.” 

“There’s no way you could possibly assure me that there is nothing I need to be made aware of in the future, as the future has not happened yet.” He looked among his squad, all looking awkwardly in different directions. “Santiago?”

“No, sir.” Her eyes remained pointed at her lap, watching as she picked at her thumb. 

“Very well. Dismissed.” 

Amy watched as Charles crowded Jake into the break room when they walked out of the office. When she looked up at Rosa, her eyebrows were raised knowingly. 

“What the hell, Santiago?” 

Amy took a deep breath, shrinking away from Rosa’s questioning. “I honestly don’t know what just happened.” 

Rosa followed her to her desk, sitting on the edge of it as Amy sank into her chair, her confused glance still aimed down. “Well, did you guys get in a fight or something?”

Amy’s voice was shaky as she tried to understand his actions herself. She came to his apartment, they both cried, they held each other, he fell asleep in her arms, and then when she woke up, he was gone. She thought maybe they’d have a tense conversation, but she didn’t think he’d show up to work when he was supposed to be off and refuse to be her partner. She didn’t even know what happened. She cleared her throat. “No. I don’t know, Rosa.” 

“Did something happen?” 

She was busy trying to take deep, slow breaths. She didn’t need to attract any more attention to herself, especially if Jake was going to be walking back into the bullpen. 

“Rosa!” Charles practically shouted as he came out of the break room. “Go talk to him.” She made a face at him, and he raised his eyebrows. He stopped in his place, dramatically lowering his voice. “Will you please go talk to Jake? He’s being ridiculous.” 

She rolled her eyes, then looked at Amy. When Amy wouldn’t return her gaze, she sighed and walked toward the break room. 

“What’s going on?” She asked as she walked into the room. Jake was sitting at one of the tables looking at his phone. He didn’t look up at her. “Peralta.” 

He sighed, but he finally looked up at her. “Diaz?”

“What’s going on?” 

“Nothing.” He looked back down at his phone. 

She walked over, pulling his phone out of his hands. She placed it face-down on the table, leaning over it and in a way that suggested he’d regret it if he tried to pick it back up. “Bullshit.”

This sigh was much more frustrated. “I don’t want to talk about it.” 

“I mean, you kind of gave up the choice when you decided to switch partners without consulting any of us first.” 

He rolled his eyes as he looked back up at her, his lips pursed. “What, because you’d rather be partners with Charles than Amy?” 

Rosa rolled her eyes right back. “Since when would _you_ rather be partners with Charles than Amy?” 

Jake scoffed. “Charles is a great partner. We were partners for years—”

“I know Charles is a great partner.” She cut him off, eyebrows raised. “So is Santiago.” 

His jaw flexed, and his eyes shot back down to the table. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Well she—”

“I don’t want to talk about her, Rosa.” She watched as his jaw clenched again. His eyes flashed back up to hers, and though his voice was stern when he spoke, his eyes looked sad. She glared at him. His sad eyes were the only thing stopping him from getting punched in the arm at that tone. “Look, thank you. For being here for me and everything. But I really don’t want to talk about this.” He looked up at her, pleading. “And I’m sure you’ll be happy to hear that you’ll be the first person I’ll come to if I change my mind.” 

She rolled her eyes at the sarcasm. She stood in front of him, still leaned over the table for a moment. Finally, she sighed, straightening up. “Fine. But she doesn’t even know what happened. You should talk to her.” 

He scoffed, but she didn’t say anything else before she walked out of the room. 

_He_ should talk to _her_. Pff. 

Of course she’d tell Rosa that she didn’t know what happened. She probably didn’t want to talk about it, either. He gave himself a few more minutes to cool off. He avoided Charles’s frantic glances from across the room. He’d pushed him into the breakroom to harass him about _what happened with Amy?_ He wouldn’t accept Jake’s repeated _nothing_ as an answer, which is when he went and pinned Rosa on him. 

But it would all be fine. He’d take a little while to get things together at his desk. Holt had given him the files for the open cases that Charles and Rosa had been working on, while Amy got to keep the open cases that the two of them had been on. He’d familiarize himself with the new files, try to tone down his annoyance at losing the cases he’d been working on, and by the time he was ready to talk to Charles about it, they’d probably both be a little more chill. 

He was still scanning through the files about an hour later, when a piece of evidence caught his attention. There was a description, but no image attached. He sighed to himself, pulling the file with him so that he could find the correct box in the evidence room. This was the trouble with shifting cases between people. Sometimes bits of the file could get lost in all of the exchanging. He’d just run in there to check it out. 

He had finally just found the box when he heard the door open up behind him. He sighed to himself, sure that he knew who it was. 

“Can we talk?” 

He was surprised to hear Amy’s voice, expecting it to have been Charles that followed him. He turned to face her before he even thought about it. She had her arms crossed, her eyebrows drawn together just like they had been earlier. He looked back down at the box he was going through. “I’m actually kind of busy right now.” 

“Jake—”

“I don’t want to talk to you, Amy.” He looked back up at her, and her expression almost made him regret his words. 

She sounded much more frustrated when she spoke again. “Why not?” 

He laughed. “What do you _mean_ why not?” 

She threw her hands up, as if that had been a stupid question. He rolled his eyes. “I mean why don’t you want to talk to me, Jake?” 

“Because it doesn’t make me feel good?” He was back to looking at the box he was shuffling through, so he missed her frown at that. “Being around you doesn’t make me feel good.” He shrugged, once again shoving away his urge to ask her why she’d left. He knew the answer, and he knew from experience that hearing her say it wouldn’t make him feel better _or_ make it easier for him to get over her. 

“So… what?” 

He turned back to look at her, his eyebrow raised. “What?” 

“So what now, then? I don’t make you feel good, all of a sudden? So we just go from being partners and friends to…?” She was looking down at the floor, her arms crossed tight across her chest. 

He was quiet for a moment. He felt the urge to correct her. This didn’t happen all of a sudden. It had happened over the course of many small interactions. Her leaving this morning was just the final straw, and he honestly felt like she should’ve known that it would be when she read his note and still made the decision to leave. He sighed. “We go from whatever we were before… to just coworkers.”

Her voice was softer. “And what does that mean?”

This sigh was a little more frustrated. “I don’t know, Amy. It means we’re professional when we get thrown together on a case, but we don’t really talk outside of that. It means we don’t hangout outside of work, and we definitely don’t sleep together.”

“Uh… okay…” She trailed off, and he avoided looking over at her. He could hear in her voice that she was upset, and he knew that he didn’t handle seeing her upset well. His big, smart solution was just to not look at her at all. “I’m sorry, I just don’t understand.” 

“Yeah.” He scoffed quietly. “I didn’t either.” He shuffled through the final contents of the box, but the piece of evidence he was looking for wasn’t there. _“Fuck.”_ He gripped the edge of the box and huffed, aggravated by the missing evidence and upset by the conversation with Amy. “Look, I’m a little preoccupied right now. I don’t really want to talk.” 

He barely heard her response. “Yeah. Right. Of course.” She took a deep breath. “Sorry.” 

He heard the door shut behind her. _“Fuck,”_ he repeated a little more forcefully, slamming the box back onto the shelf it came from. He leaned his arms on the shelf, resting his head on his arms. 

This _isn’t_ what he wanted. He didn’t want to hurt her. But he also didn’t want to be hurt _by_ her. This was the answer. He was sure of it. They’d get some distance between them, some much-needed space, and everything would work itself out. He’d avoid going out with the squad for a few weeks, and he was sure that eventually, he could manage being around her socially. 

Maybe after a few weeks, he’d be ready to keep trying to date. It wasn’t fair for him to try and start anything with anybody right now, when he was still so completely wrapped up in Amy, but if he let it sit for a few weeks, minimal contact, he was sure that would do the trick. It was really the only thing he hadn’t tried yet. Even when they were just friends, they were constantly around each other. He imagined that with a little bit of effort, he could get really good at avoiding and ignoring her, at least as much as was possible with them working together. 

But it sucked. And it hurt. And all he wanted was to grab her wrist before she’d walked out the door, to pull her into his arms. He wanted to look her in the eyes and tell her everything she meant to him, to watch that hurt look fade away from her features, to hopefully feel the weight of that same feeling lifting off of his heart. 

But it didn’t matter what he said. It never had. It wouldn’t change anything. He didn’t say everything he wanted to say in that note, but he’d said enough of it. And she still left. And she’d continue to leave. They needed _distance_.

He’d had probably the worst twenty-four hours of his life, and being with her took it all away. He had someone else’s blood on him. He had to swallow back the lump in his throat when he thought about it. He’d been putting pressure on the gunshot wound. The victim was a father, two scared kids by his side as he bled out on the floor. The man was unconscious, and by the looks of how much blood he’d lost when Jake found him, he didn’t guess that his odds were good. He was trying to calm the kids, working on getting the dad’s jacket wrapped around his wound to keep the steady pressure, trying to assure all of them that everything would be okay, even though he was convinced that it wouldn’t be. 

That’s when someone grabbed his arm, jerked him backwards roughly. He felt a sharp, stabbing pain in his ribs. The butt of a gun, if he had to guess. He’d been so focused on the terrified look in the kids’ eyes, he hadn’t been checking his surroundings that well. He was the only cop in the hallway at the moment. 

“Hey, hey, it’s gonna be okay, buddy.” Jake said to the oldest boy. He winced as the gun slammed into his ribs harder. He wasn’t wearing his vest. He squeezed his eyes shut, hoping that this man wasn’t going to shoot him in front of these already-traumatized kids. His vest was in the trunk of the car. He had been on the way back to the precinct from meeting with a witness from another case. When he got to the hotel, he made sure he had his badge and his gun, and he ran straight in. 

“Shut the fuck up,” the gunman hissed. 

Jake nodded to the little boy, all but ignoring the man holding a gun at him. “Push on it, like I was doing.” The little boy scrambled to move closer and put pressure on the wound. He’d never be able to get the image of the boy, his dad’s blood on his arm. “Good job, buddy. Keep doing that. Help’s coming.”

The sensation of the gun on his ribs changed. It _had been_ the butt of the gun, he decided. He took in a sharp breath, taking the gunman a bit more seriously now that the muzzle of the gun was lodged between his ribs. The man twisted the gun, and Jake hissed at the pressure. 

“I said shut the fuck up, cop.”

Jake laughed, trying to alleviate some of the stress for himself. “I mean, I’m a detective, if we’re getting technical.” Stupid. Stupid move to make in front of those kids. 

“Are you fuckin’ stupid—”

“Drop the gun!”

Jake prematurely breathed a sigh of relief when a few more officers piled into the hallway. He hadn’t been aware that it was possible for the man to slam the gun into his ribs harder than he already had been. He yelped at the impact.

“Stay back. I’ll fuckin’ shoot him.” The man shouted. 

For one split second, the only time since he’d set foot in that building, his mind flashed to her. He was going to die. He had a gun pressing in between his ribs, and _fuck_ , it hurt. 

And he was thinking about her. 

“Drop the gun!” One of the officers repeated. 

_“Shit,”_ the man murmured. Jake was just about to start trying to talk himself out of the minor hostage situation he was in when the man shoved Jake on the ground and took off running, gun still in hand. 

Some of the officers immediately took off after him, all shouting. Two officers stayed behind, one checking on Jake, the other heading to the family in the hallway. 

“You okay?” 

“I’m good, I’m fine, you guys go. I’ve got them.”

Jake scrambled over to the family while the other two officers took off down the hallway. He patted the kid on the back with one hand, taking over on holding pressure with the other. “Good job, buddy.”

He glanced down the hallway again. He needed to get them out of the open before a new gunman wandered down the hallway. “Here, you hold this again, okay?” He waited for the boy to take his place. “Press down really hard, okay? I’ll be right back.”

“Where are you going?” The other little boy asked. It was the first thing he’d said through his sobs. 

Jake ignored the question, trying to move as quickly as possible. “I’ll be right back!” He picked the closest room. He knocked on the door. “Police, open up!” There was no response. He knocked again. Nothing. He took a step back and sucked in a deep breath, bracing himself. Then he slammed forward, forcing the door open and, luckily, not entirely destroying the door.

He popped into the room, doing a quick sweep of the entire room and the bathroom to make sure none of the gunmen were in there. He tried to ignore the aching in his ribs as he ran back out to the kids. “Okay, run in there, I’m gonna bring your dad in with us, okay? Go, go.”

His ribs were on fire as he half-carried, half-dragged the large man. Once he got him in there, he had the oldest son go back to putting pressure on the wound while he blocked the door off. Then he was back on the floor with the dad, holding pressure over the wound, trying to figure out exactly what to do. “Hey—what’s your name, bud?”

“Andrew.”

“Andrew, great. I’m Jake. You’re doing great, Andrew. How old are you?”

“Eight.”

God… eight years old. “Eight. Pretty cool age. What about your brother?”

“Noah. He’s six.”

This was going to haunt his nightmares for the foreseeable future. “Six. Great.” He swallowed. “Okay, Andrew, I need you to do something for me, okay? Can you come over here?” Andrew assessed Noah, then ran over to Jake. “Good. Okay, on the back of my belt here, there’s a walkie-talkie. Can you reach over and grab it for me?” He waited while he reached over and grabbed the walkie. “You’re doing great. Okay, now hold down that button on the side there for me. Good. Keep holding it down.”

“This is Detective Peralta, badge number 9544. I’m on the second level of the building. I have a victim, gun wound on his abdomen. He’s unconscious.” He glanced at the kids. “Lost a lot of blood. I have two kids here, no injuries, but really shaken up. Can we get medical in here?” He paused. “Quickly, please?” He was waiting for a response, but then he remembered. “Good job, Andrew. Let go of the button for me, buddy.” 

The message was quickly copied. They went back and forth with a little more information, and they sent a team of paramedics up. It felt like hours between when they’d called and when the medics finally made it up to them. They couldn’t safely bring the man down to the ambulance, but they’d brought enough materials with them to stabilize him in the meantime. It seemed like almost no time had passed between the medical team coming up and the suspects all getting caught. 

He spent the rest of the lockdown up there, talking the kids through everything that happened. It turned out that they were in the hotel for Noah’s sixth birthday. With it being winter, his dad had decided to bring them to the hotel, where they could have a pool party, just the three of them. He seemed like a good man. He was expected to make a full recovery when he’d left, and he still planned on calling and checking back with the family. 

He didn’t remember breathing until he stepped out of the building. The boys’ mother was outside. She was crying as she hugged them, as she watched her husband being carried into the ambulance on a stretcher. She hugged Jake as she thanked him. 

He got checked by the paramedics, got the blood cleaned off of his hands, and was cleared to go home. He called Captain Holt on the way to his apartment. He’d have the next day off, which was great, because he _needed it_. He was exhausted, and he thought for sure that he’d fall asleep as soon as he was done showering. 

Of course, while he was rinsing the shampoo out of his hair, his eyes squeezed shut tight, he started picturing the blood again. There was _so much blood_. Typically when he saw that much blood, it wasn’t still coming out of a living person. Then he pictured Andrew and Noah’s eyes as they watched him being escorted backwards with a gun pressed into his ribs. It took a lot more energy than he would’ve liked to not have a full-blown anxiety attack in his shower. 

But he was fine. He’d made it through a lot of really serious scenarios. He’d seen worse, realistically. It wasn’t the first time his life had been threatened. And the victim was expected to live. It didn’t take away the edge that he was feeling, but it was _something._

He’d decided, after that minor meltdown, that he wasn’t going to be able to just fall asleep. He got dressed and took to pacing around his living room. What else was he supposed to do? 

Then it came back to him. That gun in his ribs, the awareness that he could genuinely die, and the only person on his mind… was Amy Santiago. He should probably unpack that. That seemed like it meant something—

A knock at his door tore him out of his thoughts. He took a deep breath. Who the hell was at the door? He swung it open without even checking the peephole. 

She stood there in the dark, the distant street light casting a dim shadow on her face. Her eyebrows were pulled together, and even though there was almost no light, he could see her eyes glistening. She took a deep, shaky breath. And then she was in his arms. 

He remembered thinking that it probably should have hurt. She slammed into his chest, and he held her. It should’ve hurt when she hit his ribs, but he didn’t remember feeling any pain. All he felt was calm. She was there, in his arms. He was holding her tight, raking his fingers through her hair. She was crying in his arms, and he wanted nothing more than to calm her down. She was there. 

He didn’t have any sort of plan. He didn’t remember consciously making the decision to go to his bedroom, but that’s where they ended up. She was crying, and it had a few tears slipping out of him, too. They held each other, and he was still calming down when he kissed her forehead, his fingers still knit into her hair to keep her close. 

And then… he kissed her. He wanted to say that he didn’t know why, but that wasn’t true. He kissed her because he wanted to. He kissed her because when he thought he might die, he thought of _her_. He kissed her because he had feelings for her, and her showing up at his apartment, he was pretty certain, meant that she shared those feelings, too. 

In retrospect, it made sense. She was upset. That didn’t mean she had feelings for him. Of course, looking back now, it made sense that she kissed him. But in the moment, the way she kissed him back, all soft and slow… God, he thought things were different. The way she ghosted her fingertips across his bruises. The way he held her, comforted her as she cried at the thought of losing him… 

He felt even dumber, because he had been in this exact position with her before. More than once. He’d thought _wow, I’ve never been with someone like that before, this must be serious._ And it never was serious. And yet the second he’s given the opportunity, what does he do? He backs himself right back into the same position with her. He lets his feelings for her cloud his judgement, and then he’s left hurt and upset and, honestly, a little mad.

How does she make him feel like everything’s fine the second she touches him? He literally had a loaded gun pointed at him two hours before, had been working his way through a breakdown when she knocked on his door, but the second she was in his arms, there was nothing but her. He felt safe, and he felt known, and he felt _loved_. She makes him feel like that, and then she takes it all away just as quickly. And somehow, taking it all away hurts more than if she had never helped in the first place. He’d be better off working it all out on his own. So he’d just push her away before she had the chance to leave again. 

Love wasn’t real. It was just another stupid social construct that he’d never get quite right. It was made up for movies, to sell cheesy cards on Valentine’s day, to fund the wedding industry, and later, the divorce attorneys. And now that he’d cut ties, getting over her would be easy. 

That’s what he was going to keep telling himself, at least. 

Maybe eventually, he’d believe it. 

He shook his head, looking back over his file and realizing that he’d grabbed the wrong box in the first place. He found his missing evidence and continued about his day. 

The rest of the day went without incident. The few times he spared a glance at Amy, she was consumed by whatever case she was working on. If she looked up at him throughout the rest of the day, he definitely hadn’t noticed. Charles didn’t bother him about her anymore, and as boring as the day had been going, he was a bit grateful for it. Maybe this monotony would be the thing that helped him get over his crush. 

They were the last two people to leave. By the time he was ready to go, he’d actually dedicated quite a bit of time to thinking about their conversation from earlier. 

He hadn’t handled it as well as he could have, he supposed. He was hurt, and he was upset, and he had a lot going on in general… But he should probably still _talk to her_. He’d been trying to take steps toward being more mature, especially when it came to his friends. As he stood up to leave, he noticed her getting her things together. So when he made it to the elevator, he hit the _door open_ button, waiting for her to join him. He figured that would be the perfect place to talk, or to apologize for the way the conversation went, or to rephrase what he’d said earlier, or whatever he needed to do.

She made eye contact with him as she walked toward the elevator, but then she stopped in her tracks. The doors started closing, so he hit the door open button again. The doors squeaked as they moved back to the fully open position. Her eyebrows drew together, and she looked away from him. Then she turned, heading for the stairs. He poked his head out of the elevator to watch her, to confirm that she _was_ really taking the stairs instead of getting on the elevator with him when he’d just held open the doors for her. And _yep._ That’s exactly what she did. 

Wow. Wow. _Wow._

So much for being mature. If she was going to be immature, he could be immature, too. Being immature was no problem for him. 

He huffed to himself as the elevator doors closed. Who did she think she was, anyway? _She_ left. What did she have to be mad about? That he was finally putting his foot down, finally calling this off once and for all? She didn’t get to be hurt over him being hurt. That isn’t how this works. 

He wasn’t about to go talk to her and try to apologize if she wasn’t even going to get into the elevator with him. She didn’t even have anything to be upset about. _She_ started this. He was just trying to be the mature one, trying to set some ground rules that he intended on actually following. Granted, he was upset and went about it in the completely wrong way, he’d admit. But he was planning on apologizing for that. 

Amy _most professional_ Santiago couldn’t even get in the elevator with him for less than a minute. How was _that_ professional? Even if he didn’t want to talk to her, he wouldn’t have refused to get in the elevator with her. That was ridiculous. She was being ridiculous. 

He found himself getting more and more frustrated about it as he drove home. Why should he be the one to apologize? She had never apologized to him. And wasn’t what she’d done worse? He was just _reacting_. She was the one who basically kept leading him on, knowing she had no intention of ever being more than his friend. Wasn’t that worse?

He could make up excuses for his behavior all day. He could rationalize what he’d done by repeatedly telling himself that she had made a worse choice than him. It didn’t matter. It all came back to him acknowledging that he shouldn’t have rushed into the partner change decision without at least talking to her (and Rosa and Charles, for that matter) first. 

But knowing that couldn’t change that he’d done it. And acknowledging it didn’t make him feel differently about her actions. Walking up the steps to his apartment, his brow was still furrowed at the thought of her looking straight at him and turning for the stairs. 

Time. 

They both just needed some time to cool off. 

He was sure that with a little time, they could go from avoiding one another to being civil again. Civil, professional coworkers. 

That thought had him rolling his eyes. As if he knew how to just be her coworker. As if he’d ever had to _just_ be her coworker before. At least they had still been friends, other times. But he knew what being friends with her got him, and even if the thought didn’t feel good, he was sure that distancing himself from her would be better in the long run. 

Maybe this is how it had to be. Maybe he had to be at either of the two opposite ends of his emotional spectrum. Either he put a ton of energy into liking her, or he put a ton of energy into disliking her. Not that he disliked her. He didn’t think he even could. But he _was_ mad at her. So maybe his energy would go from noticing every cute little thing she did to ignoring all of those things. Maybe he could put energy toward fighting with her, or simply not interacting with her at all until they’d both gotten over it. 

He didn’t know. But as he walked into his kitchen, it hit him again how fucked up everything had gotten. The coffee he’d gotten her this morning was still sitting on his counter. The orange foam cup looked out of place, and he couldn’t stand to look at it anymore. He popped the lid off of it on the way to the sink, but as he was pouring it down the drain, something had him stopping the motion altogether. 

He was reminded of a time that felt so long ago. His mind wandered to her eyes, deep and dark and expressive, as he lazily spooned creamer into his black coffee. He swirled it around, watching the color change throughout and just absentmindedly daydreaming about her. He felt like he had barely known her back then. So much had happened between them since that day. 

He had the strangest feeling as he watched the liquid run down the drain. He wasn’t just discarding some stupid cup of coffee. It felt like he was washing the remnants of the relationship that they never even had down the drain. He hesitated for a moment longer, his eyebrows drawing together as he overthought such a stupid, simple action. 

He shook his head at himself. He was being ridiculous. 

He had just had two of the longest days of his life. He just needed to go to sleep. He rinsed the sink, tossing the cup into his trash can. 

He’d push it out of his mind and take things one day at a time. That’s all he could do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _I knowwww._
> 
> I've been getting weird anxiety about posting new chapters lately? Which I think is why I'm back to taking a minute between chapters. Sorry guys!!
> 
> I've been adjusting this chapter and going back and changing things and feeling unsure and shifting and I almost completely took the story in a different direction and just let them get together here because I just couldn't get this right, but here we are. I really think the best version of this story lies in this version, and I really like the way that they get together when you do get to see it. I'm hoping you agree that it's worth this mess playing out. 
> 
> Love you guys. Hope quarantine is treating you well. 
> 
> Thanks for reading, commenting, and hanging in!


	15. trouble is I can't find a way

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another chapter title from All Time Low's Trouble Is. 
> 
> _All that I wanted was just to get over you,_   
>  _Trouble is I can't find a way._   
>  _You're part of me._
> 
> ...
> 
> _Hide away the feeling,_   
>  _Never was enough, doesn't matter what I do, _  
>  _Sick of doing nothing,_  
>  _Even when you're gone, I know that I need you. _____
> 
> _____Trouble is, trouble is,_   
>  _Trouble is I don't wanna let go._ _ _ _ _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a short chapter that I am anticipating nobody will enjoy. 
> 
> but I'm loving that the chapter title is a continuation of the last chapter title. ¨̮ 
> 
> also the fact that it was out fast is probably good because that means we're one chapter closer to a resolution!!! which! probably is good news for you guys, right?

He let himself have a week to be mad at her. He’d thought about it and thought about it, and he knew that he probably should have talked to her the next day, so as to not drag it all out, but when he saw her, he just couldn’t bring himself to say anything. He wasn’t in the right place for that conversation with her, and he didn’t want to fight. Every time they’d bump into each other, it would instill in him a new round of negative emotions that would tide him over until the next time he saw her. 

Even when he’d convinced himself that he could make it through another uncomfortable conversation with her, the second she was in front of him, she would start being weird and he would get mad all over again. The four of them were thrown onto a case together, and she’d do everything she could to be in a different room than him at the crime scene. Her eyes would shift uncomfortably toward him, and when he would look at her, she’d turn in a completely different direction and act as if she hadn’t been looking at him at all. So he’d make sure to address all of his comments to Rosa or Charles, and he walked past her wordlessly as they left. 

Then he’d convince himself that this was for the best. They didn’t need to talk, and he was doing _fine_ without talking to her. Of course, his rationalizations never took into account the fact that he spent so much time trying to analyze the way she looked at him, or checking to _see_ if she was looking at him, or trying to decipher the tone in her voice when she asked him to pass her the stapler, that he’d probably actually be better off and less preoccupied with her if he just got over himself and talked to her. 

It wasn’t until that first weekend where he realized just how much he missed talking to her. He couldn’t explain why. They’d gone weekends without speaking to each other before. They’d gone even longer than just a weekend, if he were being honest. 

Something about this just felt so… _final_. He’d been more civil in actual break ups than the two of them were being as coworkers. Rosa and Charles hadn’t said anything, but he could tell that they were aware of the tension. How could anyone _not_ be aware of the tension? They practically shrank away from each other.

So he finally made the decision that weekend. He was going to just text her, but he thought it would be better for him to talk to her in person. He allowed himself to accept that _yes_ , he still thought that she was more in the wrong than him, but he valued her enough as a person to be the bigger person in this situation, to swallow his pride, and apologize to her. If that’s all it took to get a tiny semblance of normalcy between them, it would be worth it.

Of course, in order to get that tiny semblance of normalcy, she’d have to _respond_ to the apology. 

“Hey, Ames…” He trailed off. It felt weird saying her name, when he hadn’t so much as spoken to her in seven days. They were alone in the break room. She looked up from the crossword she was doing, her eyes hesitant as they met his. “I was kind of hoping we could talk.” 

She raised her eyebrows, and he watched as her eyes flickered back down to the paper in front of her. She was chewing on the inside of her lip, and it looked like she was thinking pretty hard about it. He tried to shrug off the annoyance he felt. She had to think about whether or not she could spare two minutes to talk to him? She shrugged her shoulders. “Is there a problem, Detective Peralta?”

He grit his teeth at that. She was doing it on purpose, being _extra_ professional. He sighed. “No. I just wanted to talk. About…” He shrugged his shoulders. “I don’t know. Us, I guess.” 

She looked back down at the crossword at that. “I’m sorry, I just don’t think I’m ready to do that.” 

He made a face at her, though she was looking at anything but him, so she couldn’t see it. “I just wanted to apologize.” 

“Yeah.” She shifted in her chair, but she still didn’t look at him. “I just don’t think I’m really ready.” 

He stared dubiously at her. “I’m sorry… You’re saying that you aren’t ready… for _me_ to apologize?” He watched as she scrunched her eyebrows. Her eyes flickered to a different place in front of her, but she didn’t say anything. “Wow. Okay, Amy. Whatever.” 

He wouldn’t say he stormed out of the room, but he figured that’s how Amy would have described it. It didn’t matter. He was mad again. He wasn’t even the one in the wrong and yet she _wasn’t ready_ for him to make an apology that he shouldn’t even have to make? He had kind of been under the impression that when he broke the ice and apologized, they would talk about how stupid they were being and she would apologize, too. He thought this was the route to fixing things. As much as he’d claimed to not want to be her friend—he didn’t _want_ to not be her friend, but that was the most sensible route for them, he’d thought—he’d since come to realize that a working friendship would be most beneficial for them. 

Maybe he thought that he needed closure from her. He didn’t get any sort of closure, he just got more confusion from her than he’d ever experienced. He was grasping at straws trying to feel better, trying to get over her when he still didn’t even know what happened in the first place. It had become apparent that he wasn’t going to get any closure—at least not _now_. She wasn’t _ready_. 

Fuck it. He’d give her space and time, and eventually she’d be ready, and then he’d get over himself _again_ and make an apology that he only partially believed he owed her, and he hoped that she’d show him the same courtesy when that time came. 

Trouble was that the time never came. 

He gave her space, and he gave her time, and he didn’t talk to her, and they just got further and further apart. Despite the distance between them, his feelings for her raged on inside of him. He never stopped noticing her. Days turned into weeks, and he’d tried to joke with her a few times, but she always shut him down. She spent her time working with Rosa, and as time went on, they barely even saw each other at work. 

But she was still there. Her desk was still there, her things were still there. He still caught glimpses of her, noticed flashes of emotion on her face when he couldn’t ask her what was wrong. He still idly wondered about her, about how she was doing and if she’d made up with her mother and if she was dating again. 

He wasn’t. The three weeks that they hadn’t spoken dragged by, felt more like months, and yet even if it felt like years, he wouldn’t have been ready. He was just so fucking _sad_. And over _what?_ A girl that he’d somehow gotten so caught up in that even when they hadn’t spoken in weeks, she was the primary thought floating around his head? He’s a fucking idiot. _She was never even your girlfriend._

And no matter how many times he’d sat in his apartment, hurling that thought around in his head, it never made him feel less for her. He had never been _this_ into someone before, and Rosa had pointed that out to him when she caught him staring across the precinct at Amy one day. He just shrugged her off. He didn’t want to talk about it. 

He’d never been forced to sit directly across from someone every day while he was trying to get over them. It was _hard_. Charles tried to give him advice, but nothing worked. He _did_ find some weird singles cooking class, but of course Jake refused to go to that. 

He had all of this pent up emotion in him, and he just wanted to talk it all out with her. Maybe that would make him feel better. Maybe that’s what he needed to do to get over her. His life had become this weird toss-up of _maybe this is the thing_ , but there just _wasn’t_ a thing. He’d tried to talk to her, he’d tried to ignore her, he’d tried to forget about her. He’d tried dating, and drinking, and sleeping it off. He’d tried talking to his mom, he tried burying himself in work, but somehow, it always came back to her. He wanted to get over her. 

He just couldn’t figure out how.

He didn’t feel real. He wasn’t sure how else to explain it. He faded in and out of his daily tasks, interest piquing at excitable cases, but aside from that, he felt _off_. He’d been practically working himself to death, because when he was on a case was the only time he could keep his mind off of her for more than ten minutes at a time. It was pathetic. He didn’t feel like a person. He felt like a caricature of who he used to be. Who—whom? He could still never get that right. 

But it didn’t matter. None of it mattered. He paced across his living room, tossing the packet of papers onto the floor. His chest was heaving with each breath, he was fuming, he was hurt and confused and this _couldn’t be the answer_. He took another breath, slow and deep; defeated. His fingers kneaded against his forehead, trying his hardest to alleviate some of the pressure there, but to no avail. His fingertips slid down his face, curling against his cheeks as he looked around the room. 

She was everywhere. 

There wasn’t a place in his apartment that he could look at without thinking about her. The same went for work, for his car, for the subway. The streets, every fucking building in Brooklyn that he regarded with care, information about her threading its way through his thoughts. That Polish restaurant she loved, the Thai place, food he’d picked up on the way to her apartment when he knew she’d had a bad day, the first meal they’d ever shared alone together. A park with a pond, the water hitting it just right as he walked by, and god, he just wanted to watch the lazy smile stretch across her face, content and unaware that she was being adorned with his full attention. A shady little laundromat he’d scoped out for a case once, and he could practically hear her disgusted outburst through her laughter as he looked at the flaky ceiling tiles. 

He saw her everywhere, but worst of all was his apartment. He could deal with ignoring her at work, could manage stealing glimpses at her when he was positive that she was otherwise distracted, that she wouldn’t catch his wandering eyes. It was when she wasn’t actually there that he couldn’t avoid her. He could see the light from the window glinting off of her eyes, bright as she took on his teasing jokes with a grin. The way she settled onto his lap on the sofa, wide pupils set on him with a very specific intent. The place against the wall where he’d pinned her wrists as he kissed her, her delighted giggle as she realized he was in one of _those_ moods. 

This was the worst breakup he had ever had, and they weren’t even fucking dating. 

The thing was that yeah, it started as sex, in theory. He’d seen her around a few times before the night they officially met, mingling with their peers at awards banquets, at funerals, at parties. He would never admit that he was _looking for her_ , but he noticed her at events every so often. He recognized Rosa, always by her side at these events, and it occurred to him that perhaps they were partners. Completely unrelated, he should catch up with Rosa sometime. 

The events never lined up for him to make his way to his old friend (and the very pretty woman whose nose scrunched adorably as she laughed at whatever Diaz had said about the man they were gesturing at). On the night of the Buffalo PD party (God, Cop Con felt like years ago), he wasn’t looking for anyone specific. He made a stupid bet with Charles, and he was actually sizing up some guy’s arms across the room when he slammed into her. His hands immediately moved to her waist to steady her, and he regarded the sealed bottle clutched between her palms with grateful eyes. He could imagine how the situation may have gone if he’d clumsily spilled her drink all over her in his tipsy rush. 

He recognized her immediately. Diaz’s friend. This bet was important. His bragging rights were at stake (in addition to escaping that nasty dinner party with Charles), so it was vital that he chose someone who could get him a win. He was painfully aware that the bet relied mostly on the ability of the person he chose, and he was feeling up to the challenge when Charles tacked on the specification that the thrower must be a stranger. His detective skills had trained him for this moment, and he watched sneakily, _detected the hell_ out of his colleagues. Definitely didn’t want that guy Evans from the six-three, because he was a stumbling mess, even if those biceps looked like they could successfully throw an apple seed into a thimble on a normal day. He was still regarding those biceps when he collided with her. 

He didn’t regard her with those same, searching eyes. He recognized her, knew one thing about her for sure (that she knew Rosa), and he was smiling at her. She was standing off toward the corner, a small chandelier above the place she was standing. The cheap, incandescent bulb above her shone down, and he was taken aback by how the light hit her. He caught little flecks of gold in her chocolatey eyes, and all of a sudden it felt like his brain was full of tangled wires. He was trying to connect the blue wire with the red, trying to spark something in there so that sensible words could come out, but he was coming up empty-handed. Then he was stumbling through an apology, a too-wide grin hurting his cheeks that felt too warm under her gaze, and he didn’t even know this woman, knew nothing about her, didn’t even _glance_ at her biceps, and yet he was ducking closer to her, intoxicated by the smell of her hair? Her perfume? He didn’t know, but it was warm and sweet and he was definitely a little tipsy, because the thought tugged at his brain for longer than just a second as he stood there with her scent making him dizzy, thinking about how much he’d like to bury his face in her shoulder and just absorb the aroma that he couldn’t quite identify. 

He didn’t know why he asked her to throw the peanut for him. He bumped into her and he looked at her and he didn’t make the conscious decision to do it, the words just tumbled out of him, interrupted only by the realization that the sealed bottle in her hands was full of _water_. 

Her laugh trickled out of her when he mentioned it, and she was clearly just humoring him as he explained the bet to her. He watched as her lips puckered into a sort of pout, the corner of her lip turning up in a decisively grossed-out manner, then he was backtracking and presenting the peanut out of his pocket and she was laughing again, and he loved it, wanted to hear it again and again and he didn’t even know her, but he was already plotting out the next way he could hear her laughter when he closed his hands around hers, and they were soft and warm and he held on a beat longer than he should have—but she didn’t pull away. 

He’d rejoined her after the successful exchange of the peanut, his excitement almost possessing him to wind his arms around her waist, but he fell just short of touching her. He’d raised his hand for a high-five, and her eyes twinkled as she met him halfway. He’d practically attached himself to her from there, telling jokes that he was sure were funnier than she was letting on. She was making him work to hear her laugh again, and he had never been one to back away from a challenge. 

It hadn’t occurred to him, really, that she might want something else from the interaction. He was practically vibrating with the alcohol running through his veins, senses not quite as sharp as they usually would be. Looking back, it was clear that she had been flirting with him, but in the moment he was so stuck on telling her goofy jokes that he was genuinely surprised when she’d leaned closer to him. He assumed she was just trying to tell him something without yelling over the music, but then he could feel her breath on his neck and her words were soft and he wasn’t sure he’d ever heard anything so pretty as her voice in his ear. _Wanna take me back to your room?_

He’d blinked slowly at her as he pulled away, his eyebrows tugging together as he tried to establish what exactly she meant. She tipped her chin up in a sort of nod, and he watched as the briefest flash of panic passed over her eyes when he didn’t respond quickly enough. But then he was taking her by the hand and leading her out of the room, down the hall, and she was kissing him in the elevator and her lips were so soft and—

It was at that moment that he realized that he didn’t really remember what her lips felt like on his. 

He had kissed her so many times over the past year. Fast kisses and slow kisses, clumsy kisses, heated kisses, so many of the ever-popular soft kisses. The feeling of her lips brushing against his before settling there more confidently was in his mind, but it was frayed on the edges, like a photograph worn from heavy handling. The realization tore him back to reality. 

Back to the kitchen counter, where he lifted her onto the edge and settled between her bare legs. He kissed her, long and hard, his fingers ghosting up her outer thighs and making her shiver. He toyed with the hem of his shirt, pooled around her waist where it was too big for her. She hummed against his lips when he pulled away, but she was grinning when he handed her a spoon. They shared mint chocolate chip ice cream from the carton, and he joked about how her favorite ice cream tasted like toothpaste, but he kissed it off of her lips anyways. 

Back to the hallway where they’d made the trip to his bedroom more times than he could count, one of them leading the other by hand, or by hands on hips, or by hands tangled in hair as they stumbled clumsily together. 

The bedroom, where he sat on the edge of his bed with the softest smile on his lips as he spent the night of his birthday locked away with her. His eyes followed every movement as she slowly stripped her clothes off, and every stumble, every giggle, every overconfident glance left him wrapped just that much tighter around her finger. 

It started as just sex. _No feelings, no soft kisses, no sleep overs._ But their relationship quickly evolved. From casual sex to partners, to _friends_ , their sex getting more complicated each time they met. Blurred lines and gentle kisses, observations turned to words turned to defiance. It felt less like _just sex_ every time he touched her. 

Now the ghosts of every touch lived in the corners of his apartment. She never brought things to leave over there, but every now and then he’d find the slightest trace of her. A bobby pin, a little note scrawled out in her perfect handwriting about a case, the chess piece that had rolled under the couch when he’d pushed the board off the table in a heated moment when she’d looked at him just right. 

It was the worst breakup he’d ever had, and they weren’t even dating, which made him feel even worse. Yet he’d gotten so used to their new normal in the few months that they’d been friends. They were friends. Hell, she was probably his _best_ friend. _Was._

He caught the look in her eyes every so often at work. It was hard for her to work with him now. This is what she had been afraid of, and she’d voiced as much to him on more than one occasion. And now they spent their work days avoiding one another. She’d stumbled over her words at a crime scene once when they were assigned a case together— _Ja— uh… Detective Peralta?_

He bent down and picked the papers back up from the floor. He was never going to get over her like this. Try as he might, every time he saw the quick flash of emotion in her eyes when they reflexively exchanged glances, silently gauging one another’s responses to something gross Hitchcock said or a weird food comment from Charles, he was back to square one. 

He read the first heading carefully. 

**NYPD Transfer Application.**

He set out in search of the black pen that had slipped out of her purse one day. He knew he still had it somewhere. He should bring it to work with him and stash it away on her desk when she wasn’t looking. But first, he should use it to fill out this application, because he can’t imagine that the purple, sparkly gel pen on his coffee table would get him into a good precinct.

This was okay. 

Things were going to be okay.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haha


	16. don't you go saying all your goodbyes

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title from All Time Low's Don't You Go. 
> 
> _Don't you go,_   
> _Carry on with your life._  
>  _It was a one night stand,_  
>  _'Til I woke up next to you._
> 
> _Don't you go,_   
>  _Saying all your goodbyes._   
>  _I want a one night stand,_   
>  _Just one more time with you._
> 
> _So give me one more night with you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> YOU MADE IT
> 
> (I mean, you're not through it, but you MADE IT HERE!)
> 
> This is the last of the conflict chapters! 
> 
> It took me absolutely forever to finish this chapter I just had no motivation for editing and finishing the last few scenes that were missing. But we're here! Sorry for the delay. ¨̮ 
> 
> Hope you enjoy the last of the (planned) angsty bois in this story. (Meaning that I don't think there's going to be anymore angst throughout but since the story isn't finished I can't necessarily PROMISE that. But I'm pretty sure angst is done.)

You know, at first, she kind of thought it was bullshit. 

Like… _fuck him._ Right? _She_ woke up alone in _his_ bed, not the other way around. He left without saying anything to her. Not only that, but then he showed up at work and switched partners, without saying a single word to her. And when she tried to ask him about it, he basically told her she was the worst, and all of the sudden she _didn’t make him feel good_ , which, what the fuck did that even mean? If anybody here had done something wrong, it was _him._

If being around her made him feel so bad, she’d do him a favor and make sure to keep her distance. She sighed to herself as she walked to the stairs, and she saw from the corner of her eye when he craned his neck out of the elevator just in time to watch her open the door to the stairwell. She knew it was a little bit petty, but so was switching partners without consulting anybody else first, and he did that. She deserved to be a little petty, too. 

And she kept up that energy, she _really did_. For about the first week. 

She steered clear of him as much as she could at work. They’d even rolled their eyes at each other a few times, so apparently he was mad at her for some reason that she still couldn’t quite understand. But she’d already tried to talk to him about it once. She wasn’t going to initiate another conversation. It wasn’t like the first one went well. 

Even through the weekend, she was still holding strong on being pissed at him. And she should! He deserved it. For probably the first time in any of the problems they’d had, she hadn’t done anything wrong. This one was all him, all completely lost on her, as she _still_ didn’t know what happened between the time that she fell asleep and the time that he stormed into the precinct, refusing to so much as even be her friend. 

Then Saturday night came around. 

Benji and Julian came by to hangout, and, of course, the first thing out of Julian’s mouth was: 

“So, how’s my buddy Jake doing?” 

She sighed, turning to busy herself with taking out some plates for the pizza they’d brought with them. She could guess that she and Jake had been a common topic of conversation in her family, after the infamous _but there was lipstick on his neck_ situation. “I don’t know. He’s fine, I guess.” 

She still had her back turned to them, but she could tell that they were trading silent glances with each other, probably raising their eyebrows the way all the siblings did. Benji took over. 

“Uh… everything okay?” 

Her voice went up an octave. “Yeah, why do you ask?” 

Another beat of silence. She opened the pizza box and began plating for everyone. “Just…” Benji trailed off. “You two still work together, right?” 

She took her time plating the pizza, then shut the box carefully before she turned around to face her brothers. They were both leaning on the opposite side of the counter from her. She sighed. “Look, Jake and I aren’t seeing each other, if that’s what you’re asking.” 

“Awh,” Julian whined. “I liked him.” 

“Yeah,” Benji agreed. “I thought you liked him, too.” 

“Yeah,” Amy smiled, wide and fake. “I thought I liked him, too. But we agreed that just being friends was the best move for us.” 

“Because of work.” Julian finished. Amy nodded at him. 

Benji shook his head. “No, no.” He pointed at her, continuing to shake his head. “That’s not all there is. Listen to her voice. She’s upset.” 

“Shut up, man. Probably just because she liked him.” 

“No, _you_ shut up,” Benji shot back, “something happened.”

“God, you always have to act like you know her best, don’t you? Amy, tell him—”

“You guys,” she rolled her eyes at them as they both quieted, looking at her with their stupid eyebrows raised the same way that hers were. “We aren’t friends anymore. But I don’t really want to talk about it.”

She began pulling a few beers out of the fridge before they could analyze her any more than they already had. Benji came around and grabbed the bottle opener, but she heard him mumble _told you something happened_ as he passed Julian.

They’d been watching a new show together, but they hadn’t actually been able to all get together to watch it, yet. They’d just been texting each other about all the episodes to this point. They finally all carved out some free time, and Amy recorded the episode. They all swore not to watch it and to steer clear from all spoilers—although she wasn’t sure that Julian had followed those rules. He didn’t seem as surprised as she and Benji were at a pretty big plot twist, and that had the two of them teasing him about cheating when the show was finished, the three of them draped across her living room. 

“You totally watched it!” Benji shouted for the fourth time. She idly wondered if all Santiagos were loud when they were on their second drink. “You’re a cheater now just like you were in eleventh grade.” 

“Take it _back!”_ Julian hissed. “I did not cheat in eleventh grade.” 

Amy’s jaw dropped. “So you _did_ watch it without us?!” 

“I never said that!” 

“I can’t believe you!” Benji tipped sideways, falling off the edge of the couch dramatically. “Your own family!” 

“I’m a teacher! The kids might have been talking about it!” Julian tried to defend himself.

“You teach _third graders!”_ Amy shot back, laughing. “This is a show about a hitman!”

“Hey, you don’t know how third graders are these days, Ames.” His eyes focused elsewhere, somewhere distant. “They’re brutal.” 

She made a face at the name, but she was pretty sure they hadn’t caught it among their arguing. She had been enjoying the distraction from thinking about Jake, because even if she had been mad at him, she’d been dedicating a lot of time to thinking about him lately. Her brothers had been keeping her adequately distracted, and surprisingly hadn’t brought him up again since she’d mentioned not wanting to talk about it. When she tipped her head back to slam the rest of her beer, they definitely noticed. 

Julian flopped over on the couch next to her. “Okay, what was that?” 

She raised an eyebrow at him, turning so that she was looking at him from the corner of her eye. “What was what?” 

Benji laughed from the floor. Julian was staring at her upside-down. He began jabbing his finger into her side, an attempt to annoy her into talking. She jumped away from his attacks. 

“Ow—Jule—stop, _Julian!”_ She swatted his hand away. “Stop.” 

“You stop.” He sat up, then turned so he could push his feet on her thigh. She scoffed, standing up to go sit on the love seat next to Benji. Julian groaned. “Just tell us what’s wrong.” 

“Nothing’s wrong.” 

Benji laughed again, but Julian was arguing before he could say anything. “Tell that to the three quarters of your last bottle of beer that you just drank in one gulp.”

“It’s so obvious,” Benji cut in.

“Oh, here comes the Amy expert.” Julian’s voice was mocking. He made a face at Benji, then took a long pull of his beer. 

Benji scoffed. “I knew her for three years before you were even _born_ , idiot.” 

“Shut up—”

“Okay, why don’t you enlighten us on what’s wrong with Amy, then?” 

“If I wanted to spend time with my brothers while they fought, I would’ve invited Mateo or David—”

“You called her _Ames_ , dumbass.” 

“Okay?” 

“That’s what Jake calls her.”

Then Julian was looking at her, assessing her. He’d apparently all but forgotten the argument with Benji. “Amy, what happened with you and Jake?” 

She completely ignored him, toying with the empty bottle in her hands. “Hey, do you guys remember that dance class Mom made us take?” 

Benji and Julian exchanged glances. 

Julian laughed, graciously allowing her to change the subject. “Yeah, but you were so bad that you got out of the class, meanwhile me and Benny—” Julian cut off, laughing as he dodged the pillow that Benji threw at him. 

“I was _not bad,”_ Amy protested. “They let me quit the class because I didn’t like it.” 

“Call me Benny one more time and Mateo’s not gonna be a twin anymore.” Benji directed this seriously at Julian before softening and turning toward Amy. “Yeah, that’s not true at all, you’re a terrible dancer. We all have our strengths, and dancing isn’t yours.” 

Her jaw dropped. “Are you kidding? I’m a _great_ dancer.” She turned toward Julian when he laughed. “What are _you_ laughing at? You’re just as bad as me.” 

He gasped. “Please, I could fucking plie _circles_ around you.” 

“You don’t go in circles when you plie, dumbass. You’re thinking of pirouettes.” Benji rolled his eyes at Julian, and Amy stuck her tongue out at him. 

He laughed. “Whatever. How did we even end up in that class anyways?” 

Amy scoffed. “Well, I was the only girl, so of course they forced me into the class.” 

“And Mom made me go in case Amy needed me.” Benji rolled his eyes, and Amy smiled proudly at him. “And _you,”_ he gestured to Julian, “would do anything that Amy did.”

“Mhmmmm,” she hummed, smiling stupidly at Benji again. “My two closest brothers. Glad you were born two minutes before Mateo, Jule. Would’ve been way less fun to have him following me around everywhere.” 

Julian scoffed. “Okay first—I didn’t follow you around everywhere. And yeah, you’re lucky it wasn’t Mateo because he would’ve told on you for every bad thing you did that I just tagged along for.” 

Amy gasped. “I never did _anything_ bad!”

“Yeah, _okay,”_ Julian rolled his eyes. “You can lie to Benj all you want, but I was there the first time you got drunk.” 

Benji had been leaning back into the couch, but he pushed himself up at that. “I’m sorry, _what?”_ He looked between Amy and Julian, his brow furrowed. “You got drunk before that night in my dorm? You said you’d never had alcohol before.” He shook his head, throwing himself back into the cushions dramatically. “Secrets coming out everywhere tonight, huh? And here I was thinking I was always your bad influence.” 

“I didn’t—”

“Sammy Chamberlain’s bonfire in…” Julian trailed off, thinking. “1999. You got sloshed on wine coolers, Danny Williamson kissed you and made you cry, so I punched him in the face, then I rode you home on the handlebars of my bike with three upperclassmen chasing us on foot.” 

“Oh my _god!”_ Benji shouted, standing up completely and walking behind the couch with his hands on his head. “I cannot believe this! I thought I was your favorite brother!” 

“I don’t _have_ a favorite brother!”

Julian scoffed. “Okay, another lie. Benji’s totally your favorite, always has been.” 

“Are you actually Mateo? Did you just get a haircut and come here to ruin my life?” Amy tossed the other couch pillow at him. 

“They’re not called throw pillows so you guys can _throw them at me,”_ Julian whined. 

Benji groaned. “I need another beer to tolerate this information. You guys want one?” They both nodded agreements, and Benji sauntered off into the kitchen, still mumbling about how Amy was a traitor. 

“Hey, you remember that talent show where Eli tripped and fell off the stage?” 

Benji’s laughter was echoing into the room before he even walked back in. “The third time he broke his arm!”

“Oh my god, it’s crazy that you bring that up!” Amy pulled her phone out, opening her photo app and locating the videos folder. “Kylie actually just sent me a video of that a few weeks ago! I guess her mom found an old tape of the talent show, and she sent me a video of that part. Let me find it.” 

She clicked on a few videos with similar lighting, but she didn’t find the video. She didn’t bother turning down her volume as she clicked on videos. She didn’t have anything to hide. “Maybe it was more than a few weeks ago.” 

She scrolled to the top of the videos, continued selecting videos that could potentially be the one. It was easy enough to realize that most of them were wrong by the sound of people talking when the audio began. She’d clicked a video of their niece’s school play, a video of a performer at a theme park, and she was beginning to wonder how she had _so many_ videos of people on stages when a new video took her completely by surprise. 

She was hurdled back into the memory. The camera quickly panned from a man on stage to the table the squad had all been sitting at. She and Jake were leaned into each other—hanging all over each other was more accurate. She couldn’t believe they had been this obvious in front of their friends, wondered if they had always been that way. No wonder Charles had made all those comments about them being in love. This was months ago, somewhere at the height of _we’re just friends,_ before they were _actually_ just friends, before Jake ever confessed having feelings for her. Charles sent her the video the next morning, and when she opened it, the music had her head throbbing enough that she squeezed her eyes shut and tunneled further into Jake’s arms, looking for some relief from the hangover. He whined, pulling the blanket over his head and, by extension, hers. The video had been completely forgotten. She wondered if Charles had sent it to Jake, too. Had he watched it? 

They were visibly drunk—giggly and way too close. Jake was singing along with whatever cheesy love song the performer at the bar (some place she couldn’t remember, but definitely not Shaw’s) was singing, full eye contact, and she knew from memory that the hand out of shot was placed on her waist, the other coming up to teasingly twirl her hair around his fingers. 

They looked like a couple, and she was playing into every little movement he made. She laughed at every little thing he did, hid her face in the crook of his neck while she laughed, bit her lip as she smiled when he looked at her in that way, but those things all could’ve been innocent enough, blamed on the clearly _way too many_ drinks she’d consumed by this point. 

What couldn’t be ignored was the way that she was looking at him. She knew that he looked at her like that, but she’d never seen the way that she looked at him. Even in the dimly lit bar, she could see her focus flickering all across Jake’s features, his too-wide smile as he regarded her, leaned in, and whispered something in her ear that she knew from experience was probably meant to make her blush. She just smiled at him when he pulled away, that adoring look in her eyes growing somehow even fonder. 

Suddenly, all at once, it hit her. 

She didn’t make him feel good. Because she made him feel good, made him feel the way that he was in that video, and then she pulled away and acted like it was nothing. She had always thought she was just indecisive, but looking at the video, it seemed pretty obvious. She sent him clear signals, then told him there was nothing there. 

Jake didn’t just fall for her out of the blue. She’d been feeding into it, had been doing things to make him like her. She’d probably been looking at him the same way she was in this video for _months_ , and yet she had the audacity to tell him she had no feelings for him whatsoever. Her eyes glazed over as she continued watching the video. Benji and Julian had gotten curious, were now hovering behind her, watching it all play out.

“Charles, you’re supposed to be zooming in on the singer so I can see if he’s the guy—” Gina hissed, pulling the phone out of his hands and quickly zooming to the singer. Charles protested the entire time. Gina scoffed. “It isn’t even him.” 

“Look how cute they are though,” He panned the camera back to them, Amy pretending to ignore Jake now that she was under Gina’s gaze. He was still going strong, making faces at her and singing. The corner of her lips tugged up, but she didn’t crack a smile. 

“Ames,” he whined softly, but she didn’t look at him. “Look at me. Aaaaames,” he continued, now singing her name to the beat of the song. His hands made their way to her waist again, and she laughed as he pressed his fingers into that ticklish spot on her ribs. She leaned into him, her hands clasping over his to stop the attack, and then she was looking up at him, all but having forgotten about their friends at the table. If the two people in question were strangers instead of her and Jake, she would’ve guessed that they were going to kiss. In fact, they _did_ kiss—a lot—just not for a few more hours, when they were tucked into his bedroom with a bit more privacy. 

“Adorable,” Charles muttered. 

_“Charles!”_ Gina chided. Then the camera cut. 

Amy stared silently at the end of the video, she and Jake still tucked into each other, smiling wide and looking downright in love. She released a long, shaky breath. 

Jake was right. He _should_ be mad at her. She doesn’t make him feel good. She’d fucked up everything. And now, because of the way she’d acted, because she’d been selfish and tried to have the best of both worlds, she’d ruined their friendship forever. She had been avoiding a relationship with him because she was afraid of what it could mean for their friendship, but she’d been so cavalier about it all that she’d ruined their friendship worse than even a real breakup could have. 

He didn’t want to be around her anymore, and he was right to not want to. She didn’t blame him. She didn’t even blame him for leaving her alone in his bed that morning. He probably assumed that she was just going to do the same thing she’d consistently been doing. And he was probably right. Sure, she thought things felt different that time around, but it was like her to fuck everything all up. That’s what she was good at. She could be professional all day, could handle any work situation you threw at her, but when it came to Jake, all she did was fuck things up. 

He wanted space from her, and she owed it to him to finally be on the same page as him. She had fucked everything up before, but she wouldn’t fuck things up now. She knew what he needed, and she was going to give him exactly what he asked of her. She wasn’t going to be bitter, and she wasn’t going to roll her eyes at him when they passed each other, or even be mad at him at all. She was just going to suck it up and leave him alone. 

It would be better for him this way, clearly. He deserved better. All she could think about was the way she’d felt when she realized he’d left her alone at his apartment. How many times had she made him feel exactly like that? Her vision was blurring with tears as she thought back to that day at his apartment, so many months ago. She’d looked right into his eyes and told him that being with him was nothing but sex to her, and she knew it was a lie, even then.

He deserved better than lukewarm. He deserved better than her. And she owed it to him to not stand in his way. He deserved way more than just that from her, but she couldn’t go back and change the past, so this was the best she could offer him now. She’d missed her chance. 

Benji and Julian both hugged her. Neither of them pressed her to talk about Jake. They’d seen the video, they saw the tears that she hastily wiped from her cheeks, too tipsy to control them. They turned on a movie from when they were kids and took turns reminiscing on old memories while they finished their beers. When the movie was over, they called an Uber. 

“You gonna be okay, Amy?” Benji had his hand on her arm, looking at her seriously. 

She nodded, smiling weakly. “Yeah.” Her eyes felt heavy, partially from crying, partially from drinking. “I’ll be fine.” 

Julian smiled sadly. He leaned in and wrapped Amy into a tight hug. “You’re my favorite sister.” 

She laughed. “I’m your only sister.” 

He pulled out of the hug, keeping his hands on her biceps so he could look at her. “That doesn’t mean I mean it less.” 

Benji clapped his hand on Julian’s back. “Car’s here.” Julian made a face at Benji, but ducked underneath his arm to walk out the door. Benji pulled Amy into a half hug. “But seriously,” he continued, “are you good?” 

She nodded again. “I’m just pretty tired.” 

He regarded her seriously. “If you decide you want to talk about it, I’m here, okay?” He nodded for emphasis. “And if you want to make this weekly, or if you, I don’t know… need anything? I’m here.” He glanced out the door at Julian, who was rolling his eyes at practically being ushered out the door so Benji could spend another two minutes talking to their sister. “I mean, apparently Julian will kick Jake’s ass for you if you need him to.” 

Amy laughed. “He punched a boy for me one time when I was seventeen. I’d hardly say he’s a fighter.” She paused, nodding her head at him. “Thank you. I’m okay. You guys get out of here.” 

He nodded at her, smiling as he made his way back out. 

“Love you guys.” 

“Love you,” Julian called out. 

“Love you, dummy.” Benji flashed her a smile as he ducked into the car. 

As soon as the door was shut, she let all her pretenses fall. The frown returned to her lips. She collected all of the empty bottles off of her coffee table, taking them and rinsing them in the sink. She readied herself for bed, trying her hardest to keep her mind off Jake. She had never been comfortable with failure, and this was still true as her mind returned to him again and again. 

As she was trying to fall asleep, she allowed herself to fall into the breadth of her feelings for him. Regret, hope, guilt, admiration, something stronger than infatuation, but not quite love. How had she ruined things so catastrophically? She’d made it so they couldn’t even be partners anymore, and she and Jake had a _great_ partnership—arguably the most in sync she’d ever been with a partner in all of her years on the force. She always thought that was wild, considering they were so vastly different. 

She made up her mind that night. She had hurt him in the past, but she was never going to hurt him again. Things would be different from now on. 

And by that, she meant that she would protect him from her by staying as far out of his life as was possible, considering that they sat across the desk from one another. So on Monday, when he’d given her the cold shoulder, she just kept her head down and did her work. A few days later, when she wanted nothing more than to apologize to him, to put this all behind them, she remembered that video, remembered the way she felt alone in his bed, remembered that she had probably made him feel like that more times than she could count. She pushed down her feelings, ignored her desire to talk to him, and did her work. She couldn’t continue to let what she wanted put him in bad positions, and that’s inevitably how this would go. 

A week later, when Jake tried to make a joke to her, she bit back the smile that tried to stretch across her lips. She raised her eyebrows at him, an acknowledgement that she’d heard him, so as to be polite, and then she turned back to her work. And things continued that way. They had barely spoken in over a month, now. They’d worked a few cases together, and most of their communication went through Rosa and Charles during those cases. Rosa had asked her about what happened a few times, but she always just shrugged it off. Nothing happened. And nothing would happen. 

And it sucked. And she hated it. And she missed him. 

She missed his laugh. His laugh used to be one of the most common sounds in the precinct, but now she almost never heard it. He used to always be laughing at her, laughing with her. She barely even saw him smile these days. To be fair, she had been doing her best to avoid looking at him. He was probably smiling and laughing just as much, but now that she wasn’t included in the jokes, she didn’t notice them as much. 

She found herself going back and watching that video from the bar. There were a few other pictures and videos of them, but the one with Jake drunkenly singing to her had become her favorite. Even when she couldn’t talk to him, she could still keep that video for herself. It was the only little piece of him that she felt she could truly keep, and it turned out that she needed that little piece more than she’d ever admit.

Jake had been kicking ass at work, and she was excited for him. She was proud of him, though she’d never have the opportunity to tell him that. That would surely breach the line from colleagues to friends, and she wasn’t going to put him through more than she already had. That didn’t mean she liked it, though. 

Amy Santiago had _always_ loved working in the NYPD. She’d had a few odd jobs before she joined the force, and while she’d always had a high work ethic, she wouldn’t say she necessarily loved any of those jobs—even the one at the museum where she got to put her art history degree to good use. Being in the NYPD is what she was made for. She was part of a long line of detectives. She remembered getting excited about her grandfather’s detective stories. She used to wear her father’s uniform hat, too big and tipping off of her head. This is, quite literally, what she was made to do. And she _loved it_.

But she would be lying if she said that she felt as happy at work now as she had when she and Jake were on better terms. This wasn’t a particularly sustainable way for her to do things. She missed him, she regretted the way that things had played out, but what was she supposed to do about it now? It had been a _month_. It was too late to just jump in and try to fix things now. And even if it wasn’t too late, who’s to say that things would be any different than they were the last time? She and Jake couldn’t be just friends. The two of them had proven that, definitively, more than one time. It seemed that when it came to them, it was all in or none. And since they couldn’t be all in… She avoided Rosa’s glares, Charles’s disappointed glances, and Jake altogether. 

It had almost been a month and a half since they’d stopped being friends. Which, of course, shouldn’t be the most important thing on her mind. It _wasn’t_. She was working, thinking about her cases all day, of course. That just happened to be what she was thinking about, staring blankly at Jake’s empty desk, when Holt called her into his office. 

Her eyebrows pulled together as she walked toward the office. Had she done something wrong? She hesitantly pushed the door further open, her expression becoming even further strained when she noticed Jake sitting in front of Captain Holt, his eyes staying firmly planted in front of him. 

She shut the door quietly behind her, but the gentle sound echoed into the silence of the room. Being called into the room with no context, Jake already sitting there with his jaw set, had her tense beyond reason. She sat down in the empty chair, aware that her movements were too stiff, her voice too hollow. “Is everything okay, sir?” 

Holt eyed her suspiciously, then tossed his glance toward Jake, who still hadn’t looked up. “Yes.” He studied them for a moment, seemingly not finding whatever he was searching for before he continued. “As you know, Detectives Peralta and Boyle are working on an important drug case.” He paused a bit longer than felt comfortable, and Amy awkwardly opened her mouth to interject. He raised his eyebrows, effectively shutting her up. “They’re going to need back up this afternoon. I would _like_ to send you and Diaz.” 

She was nodding quickly, ready to agree to whatever he asked of her. “Yes, of course. No problem. We don’t have any fresh leads on our open cases, so we can—”

“Detective Santiago,” he interrupted. She clamped her mouth shut, raising her eyebrows to signal him to continue. His face didn’t betray any emotion, but his sigh made her think that he was disappointed. In her? She clasped her hands nervously in her lap and tried to ignore the way Jake’s head turned toward the movement, his eyes focusing on her hands before moving back to the floor.

“I’ve noticed,” Holt began again, seeming to choose his words carefully, “a sort of tension in the precinct. Would the two of you happen to know anything about what I’m speaking of?” 

Jake and Amy looked at one another. It was the first time she’d looked at him— _really looked at him_ , more than just a spare glance—in a month. Based on the look on his face, he was thinking about that simple fact just as much as she was. He looked the same, of course. She saw him all the time, she just hadn’t really taken in him in lately. His eyes glanced over her features, finally settling on her eyes. She got lost in his eyes, distant, but familiar, that warm, golden-brown, and it took her a moment to find her voice. 

“I’m not sure I follow, sir.” 

Jake huffed quietly, his eyes straying back away from Amy. “I told him already that there’s nothing to be concerned about.” 

“Yes, Detective Peralta, and as _I_ told _you,”_ Holt stared pointedly at Jake, “this case is far too important to compromise because something is going on between you and Santiago, so if that is the case, which I highly suspect, then Sergeant Jeffords can accompany you instead.” Jake opened his mouth to speak, but Holt held his hand up. 

“Bup-bup-bup,” she knew Jake was rolling his eyes without even looking at him, “let me be clear. I have noticed that the two of you have not been speaking to one another. You are my two best detectives, and while this change has seen an increase in Detective Peralta’s efficiency,” undoubtedly, another eye roll from Jake, “it’s also highly irregular behavior from the both of you. And now, with Jake leaving…” Holt trailed off. Amy raised an eyebrow when Jake almost imperceptibly tensed next to her. Jake had left as her partner over a month ago. What did that have to do with any of this? “It begs the question. So I am going to inquire, for the third time now: Is there anything I need to know about that could adversely affect your partnership on this case?” 

Jake sighed, then turned to look at Amy. She returned his gaze, trying to discreetly gauge his thoughts. 

“I mean, I’m a little hungry, I guess,” Jake offered. Holt raised his eyebrows, and she was sure that he was about to start a lecture that neither of them wanted to sit through. She turned toward him. 

“There’s nothing to worry about, Captain.” She wasn’t sure where she was going with it when she started, so she just pushed her thoughts out of her mind and spoke as it came to her. “Detective Peralta and I haven’t been speaking as much now that we aren’t partners.” She shrugged, trying her best to be nonchalant, even though she could feel Jake’s eyes on her. “Just a side-effect of working with a little more distance between us.” She glanced at Jake quickly, noting that his brow was furrowed, his eyes shifting away from her when she met them with her own. “We’re both professional, and there’s nothing going on, and you don’t have to worry about the security of this case.” 

Holt was quiet for a moment, looking between them again. Jake cleared his throat. “What she said.” 

“I have to say,” Captain Holt turned toward Amy, “I’m mildly surprised at how well you’re handling this.” 

Amy quirked an eyebrow. Did he have no confidence in her at all? It was just a conversation. “Thank you, sir.” Jake seemed to deflate next to her. What was his deal? 

“All the same, you’ve been warned. If this case is compromised because of something you’re not telling me, there _will_ be consequences, and neither of you will enjoy them. Understood?” Both of them nodded grimly. “Dismissed.” 

They sauntered out of the office together, both exchanging awkward glances. Once Holt’s door was shut, Jake turned toward her. “Ames—”

“You guys, c’mon.” Charles interrupted, pulling both of them by the arm. “Rosa’s outside, we have to go. She’ll brief you in the car, Amy.” 

Amy followed along, trying to shake the shiver that hearing Jake call her _Ames_ sent down her spine. 

—

Jake’s head was swimming with thoughts that just wouldn’t leave him alone. He’d almost entirely tuned Charles out throughout the drive. He knew the case front and back, knew exactly what they were on their way to do, so he took the time to shut his eyes and try to quell the queasy feeling overcoming him. 

“You okay, buddy?” Charles asked. When Jake didn’t reply, he continued. “Nervous about the case?” 

Jake turned toward him, eyebrows pulling together in offense. “What? No.” 

“Then what’s going on?” He paused, then when it became evident that Jake had no intention of answering, he sighed. “It didn’t go well when you told Amy?” 

Jake tried to contain his reaction. His voice was low when he finally forced a response. “I didn’t tell her.” 

Charles slammed on the brake, turning to look at Jake. They both jerked forward as the car stilled. The person behind them blew the horn. 

“Charles!”

 _“What do you mean you didn’t tell her?!”_

“You can’t just slam on the brakes in the middle of the road!” 

He continued driving, his face contorted as he processed the new information. He sounded much more serious when he spoke again. “Jake, tomorrow’s your last day.” 

“I know.” 

“She deserves to know before you leave.” 

“I know.” 

“You have to talk to her—”

_“I know.”_

“Then why haven’t you?” 

Jake huffed, shifting back toward his window. “I don’t know.”

There was a brief silence. “Honestly, I kind of think you do know. And I think that’s all the more reason to talk to her.”

Jake ignored him. He was right, but that didn’t mean he had to acknowledge it. Talking to her wasn’t going to change anything. He’d waited far too long to bring it up. He was going to tell her about the transfer, he swore. But it wasn’t like they had been talking… Which meant that he would have to initiate a conversation specifically to tell her that he was leaving, which, truthfully, scared him for more reasons than one. 

What if she was mad? What if she was hurt, or sad, or some other form of disappointed? He didn’t want to face that. He didn’t want to change his mind because of the look he could picture her giving him as she tried to pretend that it didn’t bother her. 

Or—maybe worse—what if she didn’t have to pretend? What if she didn’t care at all that he was leaving? What if she was _happy?_

He wasn’t sure that he could handle that. So he just kept putting it off, and kept putting it off… Holt had agreed to let him tell everyone on his own time, so long as they all knew before his last day. He told Charles the day that he submitted the form, but he swore him to secrecy. He knew that he would need the most time to reckon with the change. He’d actually taken it better than he thought he would. He only cried for two full days—a solid six days less than Jake expected. He talked about it every time they were alone, though. Asked him not to leave, gave him reasons to stay, tried to talk about Amy, who Jake had never confirmed was the reason he was leaving, but Charles knew better than to think that wasn’t the case. 

He told Rosa shortly after he told Charles. She didn’t visibly react, but he knew that she’d miss him. He hoped they’d still catch up, sometimes. Rosa’s biggest concern was Amy. Had he told her? Was he going to? He better. She’d been urging him to tell her, and she was fully aware that he still hadn’t. She’d given him an ultimatum that morning. 

“She deserves to hear it from you, Peralta.” 

“I know. I’m going to tell her.” 

“If you don’t tell her by the end of the day today, I’m telling her for you.” She took a step closer, and he would’ve taken a step back, but he figured the consequences would be worse if he did. “And that doesn’t mean that you should avoid telling her so that I do it. You’re not a coward.”

He nodded an understanding, then solemnly walked back to his desk. The thought of telling her made him sick then, but that feeling had increased tenfold now. Holt had mentioned his leaving in front of her twice. She misunderstood. He wasn’t sure if he should be grateful or disappointed. Grateful, probably.

As much as he didn’t want to have the conversation, Charles and Rosa were both right. She deserved to know, and she deserved to hear it from him. He just wished that he’d forced himself to have the conversation earlier. He couldn’t see it going well now, with him only having one day left in the precinct. She deserved to know. She deserved to hear it from him. But she deserved to have heard it a week ago. 

He hoped that she would understand, but the thought made his stomach turn. This was the best move for him, and he had to make that choice, however hard it may be. Working alongside her, falling harder for her all the while, it wasn’t good for him. He had to get away. He felt that she probably could accept that he was leaving, but he wondered if she’d forgive him for waiting so long to break the news. He’d hypothesized that they could probably maintain a friendship, what with him leaving the precinct, and everything. Now that there would be some distance between them, he felt that they may be better equipped to take on friendship. He cautioned himself when he once let his mind stray to the possibility of _more_ than friendship, after he’d left and work would no longer be an added complication. The reason he was leaving was to get _away_ from that sort of thinking. 

But then he didn’t tell her he was leaving. So now she’d probably just hate him. 

“I’m just gonna tell you now,” Charles piped back up. Jake turned toward him, noting the edge in his voice. “Rosa was sure that you hadn’t told Amy yet. I gave you more credit than that, which…” He trailed off, and Jake closed his eyes, a short exhale escaping his nose. He already hated himself, but with even Charles gently chiding him, he knew he’d seriously screwed this up. “She’s already formulated this whole plan, and you know I wasn’t going to disagree with her because, ya’know, I value my life.” 

“A plan?” 

Charles scrunched his nose uncomfortably, then glanced back at the road. “You and Amy are going to be tailing Ingalls. Rosa and I will be monitoring and keeping watch at the car. Pending everything goes as planned…” He trailed off, shifting his hands on the wheel. “Rosa and I will take Ingalls after the arrest, and you and Santiago will drive back to the precinct together.” Charles spared a glance at Jake’s dumbfounded face. “Perfect time to tell her. Ya’know, when you’re driving and she can’t punch your beautiful face.” 

Jake rubbed his fingertips into his temples. He needed a drink. He managed to keep his reaction to himself. He went back to staring out his window. _Great._ He was having enough trouble just thinking about Amy, but now he was going to have to spend the whole day practically alone with her. Alone, with Charles and Rosa watching their every move. Alone in public, sure, but alone all the same. 

He tried to get a handle on his uneasiness, but he felt more uncomfortable than ever as Charles pulled up next to where Rosa’s unmarked car was already parked. Charles scanned the parking lot, making sure that nobody was watching them. According to their tip, they had about an hour before the drop was supposed to go down, but they had to scope out the area just in case. Jake surveyed the other side, taking care to avoid looking at the car next to him, where he could feel at least one set of eyes on him. 

“Alright, you ready, bud?” 

Jake shook his head, watching as Amy and Rosa exited their car. “Nope.” Then he popped the door open, exiting with an uneasy smile across his face. 

“Let’s do this, Santiago.” 

Amy leaned back into the car, reaching for something Jake couldn’t see. Rosa’s palm slapped against his chest hard enough to make him wince. She narrowed her eyes at him, her voice low enough that Amy couldn’t hear her. “Tell her on the way home.”

Jake knew better than to voice his discomfort, so he just grimaced and walked past her. 

“And be safe, idiot.” Rosa tacked on. 

He rolled his eyes. “A nice afterthought.”

She rolled her eyes back as she slipped into the passenger seat of the car. Jake scaled the side of the car, coming alongside Amy. She averted her eyes, awkwardly looking down at the ground as they walked toward the center of the park. It occurred to him for a moment that this is how it normally feels when you first meet someone. This was a phase they’d completely skipped when they met. The most awkward moment between them had been the moment of impact, his hands steadying her as he bumped into her at the party, but then it was all ploys to make her laugh, straight into arguing about everything, and sex so good that they couldn’t leave each other alone. It was weird to have these moments for the first time after there was already so much history between them. 

The silence between them was thick, and he was grateful that she broke it before him. 

“So… How are we playing this?” 

He raised an eyebrow at her. “What do you mean?” 

She rolled her eyes, glancing around them again before continuing. “I mean, who’s your character? What’s your angle? You love this stuff.” 

He shrugged his shoulders, leading her over to a bench, waiting for her to take the spot beside him. He watched as the sun filtered through the water at the fountain in front of him, little fragmented rainbows glimmering on the sidewalk at his feet. “I don’t know. Just two friends… hanging out at the park?” 

She was silent long enough that he looked up at her to find her concerned gaze. “You don’t have a name picked out?” He shrugged. He hadn’t put much thought into it. He’d been preoccupied with other things. “Are you okay?” 

He looked out in the distance, scanning the park. “Yeah. Just not really in a character mood.” 

A silence fell between them again, though he felt slightly less uncomfortable than before. It was just Amy. Even if things between them were weird, she was still Amy. The same Amy that made him feel safe and known, just a few short months ago. They had built a makeshift shelter together, but there was never any real foundation between them. A series of natural disasters left them vulnerable, and though he tried to patch the holes in their friendship, nothing they did could outlast the strengthening storms. The final earthquake between them had been too strong for them to withstand. There was a fault line between them now, their individual wreckages separated by an insurmountable distance. And every chance he got, he thought little shockwaves into existence, crumbling the earth between them further, shifting them that much farther apart. Sitting here with her, for the first time in such a long time, he could practically feel the tectonic plates shifting, bridging their distance—and they hadn’t even really talked yet. 

He should’ve given her the benefit of the doubt and shared his news with her. It was strange, how sitting next to her in a quiet park was already putting him at ease. He’d spent so much time thinking about her, about how everything went wrong, trying to find a way to make this woman that he cared for so much into the villain in his story, but now that it was just the two of them there, it all felt so inconsequential. 

The park was mostly vacant. He glanced around at the trees for a moment, trying to locate the bird that was singing to their left. He was trying to give himself a moment to think things through before he spoke. How many times had he been sitting within this same distance of her in the past two weeks, and yet he hadn’t been able to locate the courage to tell her he was transferring? And now, the one time where he physically _could not tell her_ , it was all he wanted to say. But they were in the middle of a stakeout. It’s not like he could start a conversation like that and expect that things would run smoothly between them, even though he thought it was a possibility. It would be irresponsible of him to tell her now, at the worst possible moment, even if it would make him feel better to get it off his chest. 

“Amy, I—”

“Jake, I just—”

They both turned toward each other, then quieted as they interrupted one another. He looked down bashfully, tugging at his hoodie sleeve. Her soft laughter caught his attention, and he looked up at the sound, a smile on his lips. 

“Go ahead.” She offered him an encouraging smile. 

He sighed, long and drawn out. This conversation was a month in the making, and as many times as he’d thought about this moment, he’d never really found a way to phrase it all correctly. He held her eye contact. “I’m sorry, Ames.” 

She nodded. “Me too.” 

“No.” He turned to face her more fully. “I was upset, and instead of handling that like an adult, I ran into work and did the worst thing I probably could have done. And you deserved better than that.” 

She looked away, focused her attention on smoothing her fingernails over the denim on her lower thigh. “I think we both deserved better.” 

A few moments passed between them, sitting quietly in each other’s presence. He was trying to figure out how to ask her why she left without sounding pathetic, but then he was turning toward her at the sound of her voice. She sounded resigned. “It’s been a hard month.” 

She didn’t say the words, but they hung in the air without being spoken. It’s been a hard month _without you._

His following laugh was humorless. “You have no idea.” 

After a few more semi-comfortable minutes of silence, he resigned to joking about her outfit. Rosa had deemed it to be “a casual outfit,” retrieved from her trunk. There were holes in the knees of her black jeans, and her black sweater was fitted and, from the looks of it, not that warm. She explained that she thought the leather jacket was a bit much, so she opted to leave it in the car. She was shivering, always perpetually cold, and Brooklyn in January, especially near the water like they were, was frigid. He watched as she rubbed her hands over her arms for warmth, trying to settle the dispute in his mind about whether it was okay for him to give her his jacket or not. 

He finally decided that he didn’t care if it was okay, he wasn’t going to sit idly by while she froze to death next to him. He ignored her protests as he pulled his leather jacket off and gently affixed it over her shoulders. Her arguments stopped as soon as she was shielded by the jacket. He shook his head at her, managing to hide his laughter with a smirk as she snuggled further into it. 

“I just think it’s funny that you still ended up wearing a leather jacket.” 

She was about to say something (he’d like to think the words that died on her lips were _thank you_ and not _shut up_ , but he couldn’t say for sure) when she shifted to look at a place behind Jake’s shoulder. He tensed, ignoring his urge to follow her gaze. 

“What is it?” 

“Think it’s our guy,” she replied quietly, her eyes following movements. “About 6’2, short blonde hair? Carrying a briefcase.” 

“Sounds about right,” Jake commented. “See a tattoo on the left side of his neck?” 

She abruptly shifted closer, dipping her chin in close to his neck. She was just trying to get a better view of the perp, he knew, but his breath hitched anyway. 

“Yeah,” she answered. “What are you doing? Relax a little bit.” 

He released the breath that he’d been holding and looped his arm around her waist, so as to not look quite as awkward as he felt. The man finally followed the concrete path into Jake’s line of sight, and sure enough, it was Ingalls. He angled closer to Amy, trying to keep Ingalls in his peripheral vision as he spoke into her ear. 

“Definitely him. How do you think we should take this?” 

She fake giggled, like what he’d said was funny. “Let’s go for a walk, babe.” 

He followed her lead, taking her hand as he stood up. They walked slowly, making sure to keep their distance from Ingalls. He was looking around every few seconds, scanning the area, essentially acting like every suspicious person in the history of suspicious people. You’d think someone who commits crimes for a living would be better at being inconspicuous. 

He stopped near a tree a little ways ahead of them. Amy pulled Jake over to look at a little dedication plaque arranged in the stone walkway. She kept her eyes glued to Ingalls, and Jake reflected on all the times he’d thought about not being able to trust her in the field. It was such a stupid thought, and he’d let his mind run away with it once it was there. She was a fantastic, incredibly thorough detective, and he should have been confident that he could trust her, regardless of their personal situation. 

When Amy saw another man coming from a different direction, she continued the walk, tugging Jake along by their interlocked fingers and murmuring a description of the new figure. They hadn’t had time to figure out what their next move would be, but they knew they needed to be closer when the drop went down. 

If there was one thing in this world that Jake could do well, it was follow a lead. He’d been following leads, working up to being the best detective he could possibly be, from way before the time that he’d actually become a detective. And Amy… Well, she was definitely giving him a lead to follow. He just wasn’t quite sure that it was the right call. 

“Johnny,” she’d hissed, releasing his hand as they got in the general vicinity of the men. They were still a distance apart, and at the minor commotion, the man coming to take the briefcase was clearly a little spooked. 

They were definitely close enough to spring into action when the drop went down, but Amy continued walking. His desire to leave characters out of this be damned. “Dora, babe, c’mon…” He said it softly, and she played into the tone and turned back around to face him, where she was a few steps ahead of him when he’d said it. 

She huffed. He watched as her irises flicked to the corner of her eyes, straining to see the men without turning her head. “No, Johnny. I can’t believe you’d say that to me. What, do you think it’s funny or something?” 

“What? No, of course not.” She turned her head now, mocking the motion to turn around completely and giving them both an opportunity to steal a glance at the men. They were much closer now, but they still had some stalling to do before the drop would happen. He moved his hand to her chin, tipping her face so that she was looking at him again. “She meant nothing to me,” he offered. 

“Is that supposed to make me feel better?” She scoffed, tugging away from him. 

“Dora.” He caught her wrist in his hand as she turned around, effectively pulling her back to him. They were out of sync. She wanted to move closer, but he had the perfect view of them right here. Getting any closer might scare them off, and they were _so close_ to sealing this. “I’m sorry.” 

She made a face at him, clearly annoyed that he was impeding her plans. He gave her the look, the one with his eyebrows slightly raised, the one that said _just trust me._ His eyes flickered back to the men. They were just a few feet apart now. 

“I know you’re sorry.” She reluctantly agreed to follow his lead. “I’m just not sure if that’s enough.” 

She pulled back slightly, putting another few inches of distance between them, but she didn’t turn around. His hands found her waist, slipping under his jacket in the space where it hung too big on her. He could feel their eyes on them, and he was trying his hardest to make the interaction look natural. They were already the center of attention in this otherwise vacant park, and a fight would draw even more attention to them. They needed to have a quiet conversation, one where they could still maintain their surroundings while they worked through the scenario.

He hesitated. “Please. I know I messed up.” His eyes flicked over to them. Still a few feet apart. She scoffed quietly, and he moved his hand to her face. This felt way too real. He needed to think fast and drag out some details about Johnny and Dora. They were Johnny and Dora, _not_ Jake and Amy. “I know. But you have to believe me. _She_ followed _me_ into the coat closet—”

“How am I supposed to believe that?” She turned her head again, and he had to give it to her that she’d perfected that sideways glance, _I’m just brushing my hair out of my face_ move. The men were still a few feet apart. They hadn’t moved an inch in the past two minutes. Ingalls clutched the briefcase in his hand, and the other man was looking down at his phone. 

“Dora, look at me.” She hesitated for a moment, but quickly met his gaze. He didn’t know why she should believe him. He swore he was great at working on the fly, and yet standing here looking into Amy’s— _Dora’s_ eyes, his mind went blank. Just say _something._

“I love you.” 

_…_

Well, not _that._ That wasn’t it.

It was a character, they both knew they were characters, that Jake hadn’t just said those words to Amy, but they both stared at each other wide-eyed. He didn’t have time to breakdown that stupid choice. His eyes strayed to the men. They were still a few feet apart, but now they were clearly speaking. Both men were looking directly at Jake and Amy. 

This time, he was speaking to Amy, his voice barely above a whisper. “I’m sorry.” 

Then he was kissing her. He didn’t know what else to do. They needed to look distracted, to shift the attention back away from them and keep their cover. His hands found purchase in the lapels of his jacket, tugging her closer by the fabric until her hands were pressed against his chest. Someone with self control would have stopped there, but of course, that wasn’t him. One of his hands dipped back underneath the jacket, resting on the small of her back, as his other hand crept up to support her jaw. He opened his eyes, able to see that the men were still standing there, watching. One of them pointed, and they both laughed at whatever he said. Ingalls still held the briefcase. 

He pulled her close, and her arms wound around his neck the way they always used to. Her lips were soft against his. There was nothing awkward between them, and his mind was already swimming with reasons why that may be. She hadn’t even tensed when he initially pulled her in. She probably just trusted him, probably knew that Johnny and Dora needed to kiss to keep the cover, but then her tongue was running along his bottom lip, and he responded in kind. Another glance revealed that the briefcase had not exchanged hands. He shifted his hand to her side, and when his grip on her hip tightened, she moaned softly into his mouth, and in that moment he knew that Johnny and Dora were gone. That kiss had Jake and Amy written all over it.

That’s what caused him to pull out of the kiss. Whether it was premature or not—and he hoped that it wasn’t—he couldn’t keep kissing her. He wanted so badly to, which is exactly why he shouldn’t. He looked up at them when his lips detached from hers, and there had been no change. These were the slowest criminals in the world, and he wasn’t sure if he should love them or hate them for it. He leaned his forehead on Amy’s, both of them working to correct their breathing. Making out for a full minute and a half prior to what would likely be a foot chase was probably not the best call, but it was the call he’d made. Luckily, it didn’t seem like their perps were in any sort of rush. 

“Are you okay?” He whispered against her lips. 

She nodded, her hold on his hoodie loosening. They broke apart just enough for Jake to look up at them again, and it was finally happening. Ingalls was handing the briefcase over. 

“NYPD, drop the briefcase!” 

And just like that, they sprang into action. It was like nothing had happened between them at all. They had their weapons drawn, and Amy had Ingalls tackled to the ground before Rosa and Charles even made it over. Jake made sure that she had it under control, and when she had her knee pressed into his back, the cuffs cinching around his wrists, he took off to join Rosa and Charles in the chase. The three of them chased the other man into a fenced corridor. The man tossed the briefcase over the fence, where Charles was already headed to retrieve it. Jake was already halfway up the fence in pursuit of the man when the sound of tearing fabric interrupted Rosa’s threats to him. Jake looked down at the loud _thud_ sound. The guy had caught his pants, they ripped, and he fell face first on the concrete. Rosa already had him cuffed, tugging him to his feet before Jake even made it back down the fence. 

He made his way back over to Amy, simply for the sake of checking that his partner was okay and _nothing more_. He knew that Rosa and Charles had seen everything, and he wondered how much Rosa had to threaten Charles to get him to not immediately start cheering when _Johnny and Dora_ kissed. And yeah, he was back onto convincing himself that there was no ulterior motive in the kiss.

There was no ulterior motive, right? 

He ignored Rosa’s pointed glare on the way back to the cars. He helped to load both men into the back of Charles and Rosa’s cruiser, and he awkwardly smiled at Amy when they finally sat in the car. 

And because his stupid mind was still consumed with stupid motives, his stupid mouth said something stupid. 

“Hey, uh… You know that was all…” He swallowed. “You know that was all Johnny back there, right?” 

Because he needed a way to lead into _I’m leaving_ , and apparently _I didn’t want to kiss you, I only did it for work_ seemed like the obvious lead in. What a dumbass. 

“Oh.” She nodded, her lips pressing into a straight line. “No, yeah, I know. Of course.” 

He was quiet as he turned out of the parking lot. “I just didn’t want—”

“I get it, Jake.”

And he wanted to push the conversation, but pushing the conversation would mean actually baring his feelings as _Jake_ , and that didn’t sound like something he could fathom. He wasn’t in the car with her to talk about the kiss. He was in the car with her to talk about leaving. 

But if he’d been having trouble figuring out how to start that conversation with her before, he didn’t even know what to call it now. His lips were still tingling from pressing against hers. Adrenaline still coursed through him, a side effect of the chase (though he’s sure that the kiss didn’t help). His mouth was too dry, something that he was one hundred percent certain had to do with the fact that he’d looked straight into Amy Santiago’s deep, coffee-colored eyes and said _I love you,_ even if it was all just a character—which by the way, it _was_.

He found himself quiet for the rest of the ride, which hadn’t been the plan. He was replaying everything that had happened during the drop, trying to figure out if he had any option other than to kiss her. He was sure there was another way. There had to have been. 

Then he was kicking himself because he knew why he’d kissed her. He was being selfish. He was leaving, and he’d probably never get to kiss her again. But she didn’t even know that he was leaving, which made it even worse. But then he was going back on himself. No, he didn’t just kiss her because he wanted to. Of course that thought had occurred to him, that he’d never get to kiss her again, but he only did it because he didn’t know how else to throw those men off of their case. Holt had warned them that they needed to be on top of this case, and they had been out of sync, they were jeopardizing everything. That kiss was the only reason things went as planned, the only reason they made two arrests, and the only reason they hadn’t wrecked the very important case that held unfavorable consequences if they fumbled it. 

He was pulling up to the precinct before he even knew it. Amy hadn’t said another word to him, and he’d been too in his head to say anything to her. He took a deep breath. It would be fine. He had a little blood on his shirt from the other guy, Smithson, scraping his arm when he fell. He’d run down to the locker room, shower that off and change, and he’d come right back up to tell her everything. He said that he’d tell her today, and he meant it. 

She smiled at him as he put the car in park. 

“I meant it, earlier.” She finally said. 

He tilted his head to the side. “Meant what?” 

She shrugged. “That I was sorry.” 

He returned her smile. It meant a lot to him that she was apologizing for leaving his apartment that day. It made him a little sad that it had taken this long. He wondered if he would still be transferring if they’d made up a few weeks ago. He still wished he knew why she had done it, but why ruin the moment and ask? He was already going to have to have one unpleasant conversation with her. Why start another before he even got to the more important one? 

And besides, whether he and Amy were getting along or not, he knew putting some distance between them is what he needed in the long run. If he stayed, it would just be a matter of time before history inevitably repeated itself. He simply wasn’t going to get over her if he stayed here, and getting over her was the only option he had. He had never really been one for healthy choices, but his feelings for Amy were unrequited and honestly bordering past unhealthy. He owed it to himself to try and get past this.

“Hey, I actually wanted to talk to you about something.” 

She turned to face him. “What’s up?” 

He shook his head. “I was actually wondering if I could just catch up with you upstairs after I changed out of these clothes.” He gestured to the blood stain. “I just gotta grab some extra clothes out of my undercover bag in the trunk and then I’ll go do that.”

“Yeah, of course.” She smiled. “So, I’ll see you up there?” 

“Yeah.” 

He sat in the car for a moment, watching her walk to the building. His jacket looked huge on her, and he smiled at the way she pulled it tighter around herself. He felt sad, all of a sudden. They’d shared so many good times, but his last month working with her carried none of those happy memories. He’d wasted all the time he had left with her being mad, and then he hadn’t even let her know that he was leaving far enough in advance that they could have made up earlier, if she’d even wanted to.

Just another thing he’d fucked up.

But _fuck,_ he was gonna miss her. 

—

She had been at her desk for a few minutes before Rosa and Charles appeared out of the holding cell. 

“Hey, Amy—” Charles cut off when Rosa glared at him. He hung his head. “Nevermind.” 

Amy raised her eyebrows as she looked at Rosa. She could guess what that was about. Rosa walked over, seemingly appraising her as she sat on the edge of Amy’s desk. 

“How are you?” 

_Damn._ Either the world was ending, or Rosa had watched all ninety-five seconds of Jake kissing her and knew all about the tornado tearing through her brain, because in all the years she’d known her, Rosa had never just walked up, unprompted, and asked how _anyone_ was doing. 

“I’m okay,” she answered truthfully. Jake’s jacket was still hanging on the back of her chair. She smelled like him, a pleasant mix of his laundry detergent, his body wash, and his deodorant, the scent that was always mingled on his skin. She didn’t want to admit that it was part of why she was feeling relaxed, even with the knowledge that Jake wanted to talk to her twisting her stomach in knots, but she’d missed it. She’d missed him. And now they were finally talking again. 

She’d realized today how stupid it all was. She had been ignoring him to protect him from her. She wasn’t really protecting him, though. They were still around each other all the time, and if anything, them not talking was more unpleasant than when they’d talked. She knew what her faults in their friendship were now, and she just had to work harder to make sure that she didn’t repeat them.

And yeah, the kiss was weird. It was a lot. It was good—really good, _too good_ —not that she was planning on saying that to him. But it was weird, considering they hadn’t spoken to each other in months. But stakeouts were weird. This job was weird. They had to pretend to be married once, and it was just another part of the job. This was the same as that. (She’d repeated that thought all the way back to the precinct, and it almost felt convincing now). 

Rosa seemed to be assessing her still. Finally, she shrugged her shoulders. “Cool.” She pushed herself off the edge of Amy’s desk. “Your pantsuit is still in my car, I forgot to grab it.” 

Amy smiled. “No problem. If you want, I can just take these home and wash them and we can switch back whenever.” 

Rosa nodded an affirmation. Amy thought she’d go back to her desk, but she lingered for a moment. 

“What’s up?” 

Rosa’s eyes narrowed. “Are you sure you’re okay, Santiago?” 

Amy made a face at her. “Yeah, I’m fine, weirdo. Are you okay?” 

“Shut up.” She rolled her eyes. “I just thought you’d be taking this harder than you are.” 

This time, Amy tilted her head. “Wait… what are you talking about?” Rosa raised her eyebrows, and Amy watched as realization crossed her face.

“Nothing.”

“No… Holt said something similar earlier. I’d be taking _what_ harder than I am?” 

Rosa shook her head, her jaw clenching. “Jake didn’t talk to you?” 

Whatever it was, he hadn’t talked to her yet. He was still going to. But if it was something that she was going to be taking badly, she wanted to know now. Why did Rosa know before her?

“No. What’s going—”

“You should talk to Jake, Amy.” 

“Rosa.” She stared at her, her hands moving palm-up in her lap. “What’s going on?” 

She wasn’t sure she’d ever heard a sigh quite that deep leave a person. Rosa made eye contact with her. “Jake’s leaving.” 

Amy blinked at her. She recalled Holt’s words. _And now, with Peralta leaving._ Jake tensed next to her when he’d said it, but she thought they were talking about the partner change. “Leaving? Where’s he going?” 

“Fucking Peralta,” Rosa muttered under her breath. She shook her head. “Transferring. To the six-three.”

Amy’s eyebrow drew together. That didn’t make any sense. “He’s leaving the nine-nine?” Rosa nodded. She twisted her chair back to face her desk. What was she supposed to do with _that_ information? Is that what Jake wanted to talk to her about? She twisted her chair back around to face Rosa. “When?” 

“Tomorrow.” She shook her head, averting her eyes. “Captain Holt agreed to not make a big deal out of it. Jake wanted to tell everyone individually.” 

Everyone except _her_ , apparently. 

“I, uh…” Amy shook her head, already clouded with way too many thoughts. “I need a minute.” 

And then she was storming away, not toward the balcony to sneak a shame cigarette, not toward the evidence room to dive into work, not down to the lobby to get some fresh air. She heard Rosa call after her, but she was already on her way to the men’s locker room. He couldn’t just _leave_. He hadn’t even said anything to her. 

She burst through the door, not even taking the time to check and see if anyone else was in there. Her observations were coming quickly, overshadowed by the anger and hurt that was becoming more apparent with each step that she took. There was still steam lingering in the air, but there was no water on. She turned around the corner and came face-to-face with him. 

“Amy?” 

“How could you not tell me?” 

He was standing in front of her, his hands just pulling his jeans around his waist when she turned the corner. Beads of water dripped down his torso. Vague remnants of the bruise she’d touched a few weeks earlier still lingered around his ribs. Her eyes traced over them before she took in his face. She watched emotion flash there, his eyebrows pulling together, his jaw flexing briefly. He looked down at the floor, his lips parting like he was going to speak, but then he just shook his head. 

“Jake…” Her voice broke slightly when she said his name. She swallowed the lump in her throat. “How could you not tell me that you were leaving?” 

He took a deep breath, his hand coming up to rub at his forehead as he continued to avoid her gaze. “Amy, I… I can’t—”

“No. _No._ You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to just—what, go? I was just gonna come into work on Monday and you weren’t going to be here, and that’s how I was gonna find out?” 

“I was going to tell you—”

She knew that was true. He was going to come upstairs to talk to her as soon as he was done with this, and she was sure it had been about this. But it didn’t matter. He was leaving _tomorrow._ He may as well have not told her at all. 

“When? After your last shift was over? While you were packing up your desk?”

It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. _He_ left. He left that day at his apartment, and he came back to work and left her to be partners with Charles. He’d left her, when she thought there was something more between them. Rosa said that he knew what he wanted, and when she finally was sure that she wanted the same thing, he left her. He left their friendship, and now he was leaving the nine-nine, and he wasn’t even going to tell her. 

“Why?” 

“I—” He paused and shook his head, turning away from her. His voice was soft, defeated, yet it sounded so loud in the silence of the room. “I didn’t know how to tell you.” 

She shook her head, willing the frustrated tears to stay inside of her. “No. Why are you leaving?” 

He was quiet for a moment. “I needed a change of scenery.” 

She scoffed. “Then take some vacation time and road trip to Vermont, you don’t—” She paused, taking a shaky breath. “You can’t just leave.” 

He was still facing his locker, but he was just standing there, not looking through it. “Why not?” 

“Because I—” He glanced over at her, but whatever confession she was going to make died on her lips. He turned back toward the locker. She moved back to a subject that was slightly easier for her, one that didn’t require her to strip down to nothing but bare emotion. “Not knowing how to tell me isn’t an excuse. You don’t get to just leave without saying anything.” 

He turned back to look at her, something new in his eyes. “Why not? You’re the only one who gets to just leave without a word? It’s fine when you do it, but when I do it, we have a problem?” 

She took a step back, her eyebrows pulling together even further. She wasn’t even sure what he was talking about. When had _she_ left? That night at his apartment, all those months ago? When he’d said that he had feelings for her, and she blatantly told him that she was leaving? She would hardly call that leaving without a word. “That was completely different.”

“Oh, really? Please enlighten me, because it felt exactly like you left without saying anything.” 

“Look, I didn’t come here to fight with you—”

“What exactly _did_ you come here for, Amy?” 

“To find out if it was true.” She shook her head at him. “Because I didn’t think you’d really transfer precincts without saying a single word to me. But I guess that’s how you do things, huh?” She crossed her arms, trying helplessly to control her emotions. “Transfer, switch partners, leave. All without a word.” 

“What do you want from me, Amy?” He tossed his arms up in frustration. “You only want me when I’m leaving.” He laughed humorlessly. “It doesn’t matter what I do. If I stay here, I’m the bad guy, if I leave, I’m the bad guy. I’m _tired_ of being the bad guy with you.” 

“You just should’ve told me.” 

He looked up at her seriously. “Would it have changed anything?” 

She could see the vulnerability in his face as he asked the question. They both stared at each other, emotions running high. She opened her mouth to speak, then decided at the last minute that _I guess we’ll never know_ was the wrong thing to say, so she shut her mouth again. 

Jake scoffed. “Yeah.” He nodded his head. “That’s what I thought.” 

Amy shook her head, laughing softly. “Nice, Jake.” 

He turned around and pulled his shirt over his head. She shifted her weight, trying to figure out what to say. He looked around in his locker instead of turning back toward her. 

“So that’s just it?” He turned to face her at the question. “You’re just leaving, and that’s it?” 

“I mean…” He shrugged. “Yeah, I guess. I have no reason to stay.” 

She was immediately at war with herself. She wanted him to stay, but what could she say that would change his mind? Then at the same time— _fuck him._ Transfer forms have to be submitted at least two weeks before the transfer takes place, and _tomorrow_ was his last day. He had two weeks to tell her this, and he sat across the desk from her and didn’t say a word about it. Even if they were fighting, or whatever they were doing, how could he not tell her? She wanted to hug him, but she wanted to fight with him, and she wanted to support him, but she wanted him to stay. She wanted to go back in time and find the moment where everything fell apart, and she wanted to glue it all back together so that none of this ever happened. 

“I would’ve told you.” 

Jake nodded slowly. “I mean, you’ve always been the perfect one, right?”

She laughed. “God, you know what?” Images from that video at the bar were flashing through her head, dim mornings where she’d wake up in his arms, soft kisses that once upon a time she never thought she’d miss. “Good luck at your new precinct, Jake. I hope you find whatever you’re looking for.” 

And then she turned on her heel and walked out of the locker room. She went straight back up to the bullpen, ignoring Rosa and Charles as they stared at her. Part of her thought that he’d follow her, and all of her was disappointed when he didn’t. Her eyes burned with tears that wanted to fall, but she wouldn’t give them the chance. She buckled down to finish her paperwork. By the time she was finished, Jake still hadn’t returned to the bullpen. She tried to push that fact out of her mind as she grabbed her things to go home. 

She was going to have to get used to not seeing him there, anyway. 

—

_Good luck at your new precinct, Jake. I hope you find whatever you’re looking for._

The words were still echoing in his head, even the next day. He was sitting at his desk, fully aware that she wasn’t sitting across from him. He wasn’t going to find what he was looking for at his new precinct. What he was looking for was _her_. 

“Detective Peralta?” Holt called from the threshold of his office. 

He glanced over at Holt, then let his eyes stray back to Amy’s empty chair. Holt beckoned him to come to the office, so he offered one stiff nod. He took a deep breath, tried to choke down his disappointment at the way things had gone, and he followed Holt into his office.

Jake sat down in one of the chairs, feeling vaguely like he was in high school, sitting across from the principal. Holt was studying him, and he was shying away from the intense eye contact. Finally, Holt took a deep breath. 

“Detective Santiago called. She’s using a sick day.” 

Jake nodded, trying not to let his face betray any sort of reaction. “That sucks. Hope she feels better.” 

Holt dipped his chin in slightly, a nod of affirmation. He narrowed his eyes. “Detective Peralta… May I tell you a story?” 

Jake shrugged his shoulders, still averting his eyes a bit. “I mean, you’re still my captain for the rest of the day. Legally, you’re allowed to do whatever you want to me.” 

Holt raised an eyebrow. “You don’t actually think that, do you?” Jake furrowed his eyebrows, so Holt waved the subject off dismissively. “Nevermind, it doesn’t matter.”

He shifted in his chair, and Jake finally let his eyes follow Holt’s movements. He folded his hands in front of him on the desk. “When Kevin and I first met, we had a really hard time with communicating. I know that’s probably hard to believe, considering my mastery of communication and vast use of facial expressiveness—” Jake made a face, but Holt, of course, didn’t visibly react to it. “—but our lack of communication was one of our greatest downfalls in the beginning.” 

Jake nodded slowly. “I’m sorry, sir, I just don’t think I see the relevance.” 

Holt hummed quietly. “You should talk to her, Peralta.” Jake opened his mouth to deny that there was anything to talk about, but Holt held his hand up. “If your leaving has anything to do with your relationship with Detective Santiago, you should talk to her. You are a part of the nine-nine family. Difficulty should not split families up. It should bring them together.” 

Jake tapped his fingers on the edge of the desk, then reached over and picked up a tiny Cheddar replica. Holt’s eyes narrowed, but he didn’t say anything. “I appreciate the very insightful lecture, sir. But there’s nothing for Santiago and I to talk about.”

Holt adjusted the tiny Cheddar as Jake set it back down. “May I ask why you’re transferring, then?” 

He shrugged nonchalantly. “I don’t know. Guess I just outgrew the nine-nine.” 

“Of course. Perhaps moving to a smaller precinct riddled with less crime would be more your speed.” Jake shrank back in his seat as Holt continued. “Do you know the last time the six-three had a major drug case? 2006. There were two murders in that district last year. Most cases revolve around bodega burglaries, none of which have ever been interesting enough to attract a major news source.” Holt paused for emphasis, then waited until Jake met his eye contact to finish. “Josh McClane would be bored to death there.” 

Jake rolled his eyes at the incorrect mention of John McClane. “You know it’s John.” 

Holt waited a moment for Jake to have any other sort of response, but he just stayed quiet. Holt sighed. “I can’t make you talk to her. I can’t make you stay. But you’ll always be a part of this family, and you will always have a home here. You understand?” 

Jake nodded, his eyes slowly moving from the floor up to Captain Holt’s face. “Thank you, Captain.”

“I hope you’ll think about what I said.” There was a lengthy pause, Holt clearing his throat in what Jake suspected was an effort to dispel his own emotions. “I’ll miss you—as a detective and as a friend.” 

Jake blinked back the emotion that was rapidly creeping up on him. He was really going to miss his robot Captain. “Thank you, sir. I’ll miss you, too.” 

Holt nodded, his voice not quite as stoic as usual. “Very well. Dismissed.” 

Jake made his way back to his desk, avoiding the eyes on him as he walked out. He sniffled back emotions without having to make one of his infamous _alright, I’m gonna go cry_ exclamations. He did think about what Holt said. All day long, actually. Every time he focused on Amy’s empty chair, he thought about it. Maybe Holt was right. 

But then again, maybe he wasn’t. They’d talked yesterday, and where did that get them? They’d talked in the past, and it had never seemed to solve anything between them. Yeah, if he had talked to Amy about the transfer earlier, maybe things would have been better, but as it was, talking to her had only made things worse. 

At the end of the day, he packed up his desk. All of his little trinkets and toys moved into the box that would be their home for the weekend, destined for a life at a boring desk at a boring precinct come Monday. He picked up the little blossom ball toy. Back when the two of them were on good terms, Amy used to always pick it up off of his desk and play with it absentmindedly. They’d be talking through a case, and she’d be fidgeting with the ball. He smiled at the memory, pulled the ball out of the box, and set it on her desk. 

The squad planned a little goodbye party for him at Shaw’s. He knew she wasn’t going to show up, but it still disappointed him when Rosa pulled him off to the side to say that she texted Amy and she definitely wasn’t coming. She bought him another beer, and he thanked her with a smile that didn’t touch his eyes.

He didn’t want to ruin everyone else’s time, but he also didn’t want to be out with everyone. He loved his friends, and this party was just reminding him how much he was going to miss all of them now that he was going to be leaving. He excused himself to the back of the bar while everyone else was busy getting lost in a game of darts. He watched his friends, a weak smile on his lips as he thought about the one person who wasn’t there. He was looking down, picking at the label on his empty beer bottle when Charles sat down across from him. 

Charles pushed a new beer toward him. Jake offered him a smile, and they both sat quietly, sipping on their beers. After a few minutes, Boyle looked up at him. 

“Do you wanna talk about it?” 

Jake shrugged, his eyes focused on the bottle he kept spinning between his hands. “There’s not much to talk about.” 

“Do you wanna talk about her?” 

Jake’s eyes flashed up to Boyle’s face, but then he glanced back down at his bottle. 

“You’re not perfect.”

Jake made a face. This wasn’t normally how a Charles Boyle peptalk went, which is what he thought he was about to receive. 

“I mean…” Jake finally looked up at Charles, watching him shrug. “You’re close to perfect, but you’re not quite there. You’re like a puzzle with one missing piece, Jake.”

Jake narrowed his eyes, tilting his head as he tried to understand exactly what Boyle was trying to allude to. 

“Don’t let your missing piece get away just because you’re too stubborn to work this out.” 

Jake nodded, finally getting the comparison. “Charles, you don’t get it.” He laughed softly. He was quiet for a moment, trying to find the right words. “She’s all soft curves, and I’m all sharp edges.” He shook his head, then took a long sip of his beer. Charles watched inquisitively. “We don’t fit together. This isn’t a missing piece situation. We’re pieces of completely different puzzles. We _just,”_ he sighed heavily. “We don’t fit.” 

Charles smiled gently at him. “I’m sensing that you want to be alone right now. And I have a nine-minute hug waiting for you later, but I’ll give you some space for now. But let me leave you with this. Sometimes you think you’ve tried to fit a puzzle piece every way, but after a little time, you pick up the same piece and realize you just hadn’t turned it in the other direction.” He shrugged. “Something to think about.” 

Jake’s eyebrows drew together as Charles smiled and walked away, leaving him sitting at the bar by himself. Pfft. Something to think about, alright. He wasn’t sure exactly _what_. Something cryptic and fucking weird. Was he saying he and Amy needed more time? That they’d given themselves enough time, and maybe now things would work? Because clearly Charles didn’t know about the conversation yesterday, which adequately proved that _that_ wasn’t true. 

He spent a little while feeling sad, finishing his fifth beer by himself. He toyed with the idea of texting Amy, but he decided that it wouldn’t do him any good. When Rosa came over with a round of shots, he let himself be tugged over to the pool table. He spent the rest of the night laughing, dancing to songs he’d forgotten about, and losing to his friends in games of darts and pool. 

All in all, things weren’t so bad. He didn’t think of her much until the bar was closing, and he was turning around to get a final look at Shaw’s. He could go back there, but it wouldn’t be his place anymore. It would be _theirs,_ but he would no longer be a part of them.

As he made his way to the door to leave, he stood in the doorway, looking over the whole place. The pool table that Scully once fell asleep in the middle of, leaning over to shoot his round of pool. He could see the back window to the kitchen, the place where Charles once drunkenly challenged the cook to a panini making contest. Over in the corner, where once he’d bumped into a guy who shoved him against the bar in retaliation. Rosa punched the guy straight in the face and consistently called it the best time they’d ever had at Shaw’s. The time that Gina showed up with a full hoard of paparazzi following her, but upon being asked about it, replied that she had no idea what they were talking about. There were times with Holt, where he’d buy a round of drinks after a particularly tough case, and the two of them would have a conversation about work, or old cases, or every now and then, their personal lives. Once Hitchcock won two hundred dollars in a hot wing eating contest and spent all two hundred dollars buying drinks for the squad. He had great memories with everyone at Shaw’s. 

Then there was Amy. 

Teasing Amy about being a better detective than her, seated up at the bar. She poked him in the arm with the toothpick that held the olive in her martini. Making her blush by making comments in front of their friends that the two of them knew weren’t as innocent as they sounded. Laughing so hard that he choked on his drink when Gina got roped into “dancing” with her. Kissing her, tucked away in the booth in the corner, all their friends long gone. The time she’d pulled him into the bathroom, her laughter falling against his neck when they realized that public bathroom sex wasn’t for them. 

She’d laced her fingers with his under the table once, her thumb rubbing the inside of his wrist. It was a heads up that she wanted him to come over, he knew by the eye contact that accompanied the move, but she held his hand for a few minutes extra. When a few beers over the course of a few hours left her feeling sleepy, and her head was always drawn to his shoulder like a magnet. He would act like he didn’t even notice, still talking to the group like his heart wasn’t melting at the way she sleepily looped her fingers into the pocket of his shirt. All the laughter he’d shared with her, teasing, and jokes, and old stories exchanged. The times that he’d stared at her under the dim lights, shared a plate of fries even after she’d commented on his terrible eating habits, traded looks ranging from _what’s wrong with Hitchcock?_ to _you’re gonna pay for that joke later_. 

A lot of the time he spent falling for Amy happened within these four walls. Any time he came back here, it would never be the same. 

“Jake? Your Uber’s here. You coming?” 

He took one last look, swallowing every memory he could manage. This was good. Change was what he wanted. 

“Yeah.” 

He stared through the door as he stepped out onto the street. 

But he was going to miss this place. 

He was going to miss these people. 

He was going to miss her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> aaaaahhhhh can't believe you made it through the angst. 
> 
> I have way too much fun writing Amy and her brothers so I just keep throwing them into the story lmao my bad!
> 
> I hope the next chapter is fulfilling in tying up this part of the story (though heads up that some of the loose ends that you've been asking about won't be referenced in the next chapter, but I assure you I have not forgotten!), and thank you all for tagging along with me throughout the rough parts! 
> 
> love and appreciate you all. you've been so kind and wonderful with this fic and throughout me struggling through quarantine. I really appreciate every comment. ¨̮ 
> 
> okay I'm gonna go to sleep!! these 3am chapters are becoming my brand.


	17. try to run away, but end up running back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I've ever been this anxious to post a chapter in my life. Do with that information what you will. ¨̮ 
> 
> Title from one of my favorite songs, Crash by You Me At Six. 
> 
> _And I know,_  
>  _I've said it all before,_  
>  _But opposites attract._  
>  _We try to run away,_  
>  _But end up running back,_  
>  _And all I want to do,_  
>  _All I want to do,_  
>  _Is lie down and..._
> 
> _Crash, fall down,_  
>  _I'll wrap my arms around you now._  
>  _Just crash, it's our time now,_  
>  _To make this work second time around._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes, as has been the case with many chapters in this fic, you write a whole (or most of a, or bits of a) chapter in advance and when you get to it, everything fits perfectly. Other times, as was the case with _this_ particularly frustrating chapter, in the middle of what you thought would just be an adjustment, you get a whole new idea and you realize that the whole new idea actually seems to fit much better than the original idea and so you run with it, rendering everything you’d previously written obsolete, frustrating yourself beyond belief for a variety of reasons, clinging to _this just doesn’t feel right_ as you go through rewrite upon rewrite upon rewrite of what may be the most important part of their entire story, and in those cases, your result may look a bit like this. 
> 
> I hope you all enjoy this chapter! 
> 
> I think Charles Boyle would.

The moment had finally calmed down. In between songs, exhausted from dancing, from checking in on Kylie throughout the day, Amy sat at the edge of the head table, picking at the acrylic nails that she wasn’t used to wearing. 

Kylie caught her eye from across the room, turning to her new husband and saying something to him. Amy let her eyes stray away as he kissed her on the cheek, smiling at her.

“Amy.” 

When she looked up, Kylie was looking at her seriously with her arms crossed. She stood up, ready to be the attentive maid-of-honor she promised she would be.

“Sit back down, Ames,” Kylie commanded quietly, touching Amy’s shoulder.

She tried to ignore _his_ name. Her mind was dedicated solely to all things Kylie-and-Jonathon today, not to Jake and the names he called or the way she’d never hear him call her that across their desks again. “I’m okay, Kyles. Really.”

“I can see it on your face. It’s him, isn’t it?” Amy didn’t say anything. “Jake?” 

Amy looked down, taking a seat even though she had just told Kylie she didn’t want to. She smoothed her thumb over the thumb nail on her other hand. 

Kylie sat down next to her. “What happened?”

Amy shook her head. “It’s your wedding, Kylie. We’re not going to talk about this.” 

Kylie gave her a look, her eyebrows raised seriously. “Exactly. I’m the bride, I get to decide what we talk about. And you’re my best friend, and I want to know what’s bothering you.” 

She sighed, picking at her nails for another moment before she looked up and found Kylie’s expectant expression unwavering. She rolled her eyes. “Uh, so…” She trailed off, looking over at the dance floor as she collected her thoughts. “We slept together. A little over a month ago. And then when I woke up, he was gone, so I went to work and then he rushed in and just—” She shook her head, her hands gesticulating in front of her. “—requested that I no longer be his partner, and then we got in a fight and basically haven’t spoken since.” 

Kylie blinked slowly, processing all of that. “Oh…”

“Yeah,” Amy continued, “but then we got stuck on a case together on Thursday. And we were undercover as a couple, and we kissed. But it didn’t feel like an undercover kiss.” She looked down, lacing and unlacing her fingers. “And then when we got back, Rosa told me that Jake was transferring precincts.”

Kylie’s jaw dropped. “And he didn’t tell you?” 

Amy shook her head. “His last day was yesterday.” 

“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” Kylie reached over, grabbing Amy’s hand. “Did you talk to him?” 

Amy laughed uncomfortably. “I, uh, cornered him in the men’s locker room and we got in another argument. He said he didn’t know how to tell me.” The second part came out as more of a mumble. “Said that I only want him when he’s leaving. That he had no reason to stay.”

Kylie hummed quietly. “Is that true?” Amy raised an eyebrow, so Kylie clarified. “Do you only want him when he’s leaving?” 

Amy looked down at the table, pulled the edge of the tablecloth between her fingers. She’d wanted him way longer than she had been willing to admit. She wanted him when she was afraid that work would get in the way. She wanted him when they said they were just friends. She wanted him that night when she showed up on his doorstep with tears in her eyes, and she’d wanted him every day since. 

“No.” 

Kylie nodded, a soft smile on her lips. “Then you should go tell him.” 

Amy looked up at her, eyebrows furrowed. “What? I’m not going to leave your _wedding_ , Kylie. I’m the maid of honor.”

Kylie reached over and grabbed Amy’s hand again, squeezing it lightly. “This is _one day_ , Amy. We made it through the ceremony, through the photos, through the speeches, all the important stuff. And it’s been perfect. This is your life, and it’s way more important than you staying to help clean up. You’re his reason to stay. Go tell him.” 

Amy shook her head, looking down to her feet. “What if he doesn’t want this anymore?” 

Kylie laughed softly. “What if the only thing stopping you from being with him is that you’re sitting here asking yourself these stupid questions instead of finding out?” Her smile stretched a little wider. “I saw the way you both looked at each other. Even that first day that I met him. I’m pretty sure he’ll still be interested. Don’t let him leave.” 

Amy looked over at her. “You really think so?”

“Amy, _go.”_ Kylie laughed again. “I can’t stand seeing you like this. And it’s gonna get dark if you keep waiting. Go.”

Amy reached up and touched Kylie’s face. “Thank you. You’re the most beautiful bride.” 

“I know. Now go!”

Amy laughed as she made her way away from the table, waving once more to Kylie and her husband before she left.

She was already working out the fastest way to get to Jake’s by the time she made it out of the building. What was she even going to say to him? 

She paused as she stood in the parking lot, realizing that she hadn’t driven to the venue. They’d taken a party bus from the ceremony to the reception, and now she was stranded. Even if she wasn’t stranded, she _was_ a little tipsy.

The fastest way to Jake’s turned into the fastest way to get to Jake’s with no vehicle. She mapped it all out on her phone. A bus to the closest J train, take the subway to Brooklyn, walk the rest of the way to his apartment. She still wasn’t sure on the specifics, but she was walking in the direction of the nearest bus stop, as referenced by her phone. 

She was lucky, all things considered. Her long dress was sleeveless, the thin, off-the-shoulder straps providing her no coverage. Even with her legs being covered, the thin layers of chiffon didn’t do much in the way of keeping her warm. The first weekend of February was uncharacteristically warm, which meant that the cloudy weather still had her shivering, but her skin didn’t burn from the cold. 

She took off, running as fast as she could in these stupid heels that Kylie insisted be tall enough for her to be within a reasonable height of the _extremely tall_ best man, so that the height discrepancy didn’t look insane in the photographs. That was all fine when she was walking arm-in-arm with someone who had the same stature as a literal tree to keep her steady, but now that she was running, holding up her dress so as to not trip over it, on the rocky sidewalks in Manhattan? She hated these shoes, and if Kylie hadn’t been the whole reason she was throwing her better judgement to the wind and running across the city like a crazy person, she might hate Kylie, too. 

She was out of breath, the city melting into blurs of neutral browns and blues around her under the cloudy weather. She was running two minutes ahead of schedule when she made it to the bus stop, which meant that she had plenty of time to phone a friend. She was still panting when Rosa picked up the phone. 

“Santiago? Aren’t you at your friend’s wedding?” Amy was still catching her breath, so she didn’t reply quickly enough. “Is everything okay?”

“Yeah—” She took a deep breath, deciding that she finally had enough air to speak. “Uh, I’m about to do something…” She paused to take another breath. “I’m about to do something really stupid. And I need you to talk me out of it.” 

“Oh god.” Rosa sighed heavily. “Alright, hit me.” 

“Okay.” She looked around, double checking for the bus in the distance. “So I left Kylie’s wedding—”

“Finally ditched her? I told you there was something weird about her.”

“What? No, Rosa—” She sighed. “I’m on my way to Jake’s.” 

Rosa was quiet for a moment. “Jake Peralta?” 

Amy paced between the plastic walls of the little bus stop bench. “Yes, Jake Peralta. That’s stupid, right?” 

“I mean… Yeah.” 

Amy released a slow breath. She was kind of hoping that wasn’t what Rosa was going to say. “You’re right. I shouldn’t—”

“I never said you shouldn’t do it.” 

“What do you mean?” 

Rosa huffed. “Everything you and Peralta do is stupid. You’ve both been being stupid for months. So yeah, you leaving your dumb friend’s wedding to go stop dumb Jake from transferring to some dumb precinct… is dumb.”

Amy hesitated. “I’m not sure I follow you.” 

“You two should have _been_ boning. And not _just_ boning, because you’ve both proven that you suck at that. But like… love boning, or whatever.” 

Amy made a face, not that Rosa could see it. 

She heard a voice in the background on Rosa’s line. “Is that Amy?” There was a shuffling sound, and then the voice got louder. “Arnie, is that you?” 

She rolled her eyes. “Hi, Gina.” 

“She’s right, Arn.” Amy rolled her eyes again. “You’re an idiot if you think that boy isn’t head over heels for you. You’re like…” She trailed off. “You’re like the Britney to his Justin—ya’know, back when they were at the top and, like, wore matching double-denim.” 

“Am I supposed to know what you’re talking about?” 

Gina scoffed. “I take it back. If you don’t understand early 2000s pop culture references, it’s probably not meant to be.”

There was shuffling again, and then Rosa was back. “It’s about time you two got this all figured out.” It almost sounded like there was a smile in her voice. “Because the sooner you get it figured out, the less I have to hear about it all in the future.” 

Amy laughed, stepping out of the bus stop as the bus arrived. “Thank you, Diaz. And tell Gina I said thanks, too.” 

“Good luck.” 

“Bye Arnold!” 

Amy laughed to herself as she got onto the bus, shuffling through her clutch to find money. She walked toward the middle of the bus, searching for a seat that wasn’t visibly dirty or adjacent to some creepy looking stranger. She had just gotten to start thinking about _what_ she was possibly going to say when she showed up unannounced on his doorstep (trying to push away the thoughts about how things went the last time she showed up unannounced at his door) when her phone started buzzing. 

“Mom? Is everything okay?” 

“Hello, Amy,” her mother said, a hint of attitude in her voice (definitely aimed at the way she’d answered the phone, but she had too much on her mind to reflect on proper telephone etiquette for her mother’s sake). “Why wouldn’t everything be okay?” 

Amy pulled the phone away from her ear to check the time. “You don’t normally just call me at 6pm on a Saturday without a reason, was all. Aren’t you guys having dinner?”

“We met friends for an early dinner tonight. And actually I _do_ have a reason…” Camila trailed off, and Amy held back her frustrated sigh. They hadn’t really talked much since the night that she stormed out of her parents’ house. That wasn’t just on her mother. Neither of them had made any sort of effort, but now wasn’t really the time that she wanted to deal with it. “Do you have a minute to talk?” 

“Would I actually be able to call you back later?” Amy asked the question, no intention of following it up with any sort of explanation, but then her mouth was moving and words were happening. “I’m on my way to do something really stupid and—”

“Something stupid?” Camila cut in. “What are you doing?” Amy hesitated, and Camila began talking again. “I hope you’re not going to that Polar Swim event. That kind of cold water isn’t good for your skin, it’s—”

“Mom, no, it’s not…” She trailed off. If she were really looking for someone to refute the situation, for someone to tell her how crazy this is, the right person had just fallen into her lap. Her mom would be the perfect devil’s advocate to Kylie, Rosa, and Gina’s encouragements. She sighed. “I’m on my way to Jake’s.” 

“Jake Peralta? David’s friend?” 

Amy rolled her eyes, working extra hard to not audibly groan. “Yes, Jake Peralta.”

“Why is that stupid?” 

“Because I’m going to tell him that I love him.” She paused abruptly. “Or, well, I don’t think I love him, exactly. But I do like him. A lot. And so I’m going to show up on his doorstep and I’m still wearing my maid-of-honor dress and—”

“Kylie’s wedding was today?” Camila cut in. 

“Yeah. And she told me to go talk to Jake, because,” she sighed, “apparently it’s pretty obvious that he’s on my mind.” 

Camila didn’t say anything for a moment, so Amy began again. 

“So, I don’t know. You can tell me it’s stupid and that it’s a bad career move, that I probably shouldn’t have left my best friend’s wedding to tell my other best friend,” she opted for not mentioning the part where she and Jake had been fighting for the better part of the past two months, “that I have feelings for him. But that’s what I’m on my way to do.” 

“Oh, Amy…” Her mother’s voice was soft, and Amy was trying to pick apart the traces of disappointment that she’s sure were there. 

“I know.” 

“I think it’s good.” 

Amy’s eyebrows drew together. “I’m sorry, what?” 

“I think it’s a good idea,” Camila elaborated. 

“Oh. Because Jake’s ‘David’s friend’? Or because—”

“Benji talked to me,” her mother interrupted. Amy was quiet at that. “About you, and about Jake, and about the relationship that I have with you. He said I should give you some more time, but…”

Amy hummed. “And that makes you think this is a good idea?” 

Camila sighed. She had never been particularly great at admitting her faults, something that Amy perhaps picked up from her mother. “I think that I’ve always been at a loss with you. And that was never your fault. I think I was always so good with the boys, and you’ve always been your father’s little carbon copy, all the way down to the personality. And so sometimes it’s easier for me to translate information about you through the experiences that your brothers have had.” 

“Like,” she continued, “when Tony dated his coworker, and things ended terribly and he ended up losing his job… And I want the best for you. And then I remember what it was like to be young, and I remember times when I thought I knew everything, and when I’d run off with some boy that my parents had been right about all along…” Amy was having trouble biting her tongue, but she kept quiet. “So I think about how it affected Tony when he was in that situation, and I make a snap judgement because I know how much you love your job, and I don’t want to see you go through the same thing he went through, or the same heartbreak I went through when I was younger. But you’re not Tony. And you’re not David, and you’re not me. You’re my Amy. And you make informed decisions, and you’re going to make your own mistakes just like I did. And I need to step aside and let you instead of trying to argue with you about every little thing.” 

Amy glanced up at the information for the next stop. Still two stops left before hers. She was absentmindedly rolling her eyes. Sometimes her parents still acted like she was twenty and in need of their constant guidance, not in her early thirties and having been out on her own for over ten years. It was annoying, but some little part of her found it endearing, too. “So you don’t _really_ think it’s a good idea, you just think I need to make my own mistakes?” 

“No. Amy, listen. I think you know yourself. And I think you know Jake. I don’t think you would just rush into anything without thinking about it first. And I think I’ve seen how it’s turned out when you’ve dated some of the men you’ve met on your own, so I was excited when David was introducing someone to you because even if the two of you don’t get along, I think you still love each other and want what’s best for one another. And you know,” she paused to laugh quietly, “of course I was shocked when everything happened at dinner that night, and I think that made me say some things that I maybe didn’t mean and,” she paused for a moment, sighing quietly, “I’m sorry for that… But after thinking about it, I realized that it’s better that you already had a history with Jake and that David set the two of you up. That means that two of my smart children think he’s a good match for you. Not to mention that Benji had some nice things to say about him.” 

Amy swallowed. She was getting a lot of unexpected information from her mother right now, and she wasn’t exactly sure what to do with all of it. She settled for just wanting her mom’s advice. “What if it is a mistake, though?” 

Camila laughed. “Honey, I don’t think you’re making a mistake. You’re making a choice to follow your heart. And if it turns out to be the wrong choice, then I’ll be right here for you.” She paused for a moment. “But you know, if I had listened to all of my own rational arguments instead of following my heart with your father, I wouldn’t have you. And I love you so much and I couldn’t imagine my world without you in it.”

“I love you, Mom.” The bus lurched to a stop, and Amy took a deep breath. “Okay, my stop is here. I have to go. But thank you. For all of this.” 

“Good luck, Amy. Call if you need me.” 

“I will. Bye, Mom.” 

“Goodbye.” 

And then she was running off of the bus, already heading toward the subway station highlighted on her route. She couldn’t believe how supportive her mother had been, and she wondered what Benji said to her to cause all of that to happen. Regardless of her brother’s intervention, she had been supportive, and that’s what mattered. And Amy couldn’t believe what she was on her way to do—now complete with four people’s encouragement. 

She tried to push the thought out of her head about this being _insane._ If she let herself think about it, she had a hundred questions. Should she call him first? What if he isn’t home? Is it too late? What will she do if he doesn’t answer the door? 

One of the questions she had wasn’t _what will you do if the subway station you’re running to is closed?_ That hadn’t even occurred to her, which is disappointing, because that’s the one scenario she now knew was definitely happening. She stood in front of the entrance, blocked off with caution tape. 

“Fuck,” she muttered under her breath, still trying to catch her breath from running. 

What would this do to her timeline? Was this a sign? Maybe this was a mistake. Should she turn around and head back to the wedding? 

But then she thought about Jake. Jake Peralta, averting his eyes and laughing at her attempts to get Captain Holt a Christmas present from across the desk, even when they weren’t on speaking terms. The same Jake who’d driven hours to come see her at a conference, then stayed to make her feel better. He was probably the only reason that she’d done so well at that conference. Jake’s teasing, that even when she acted like it annoyed her, made her feel known. His eyes, all soft warmth when he looked at her, his laughter that could pull her out of the worst moods, his arms that felt like home when she was wrapped in them. 

She was doing this. 

And then she was running again. Three blocks to the next closest station. She was trying to ignore the burning in her calves from running in these god-forsaken shoes, idly wondering if it was worth the risk to take the shoes off and run through the city barefoot (ultimately deciding that no, ending up in the hospital with glass in her foot or hepatitis or something was probably not the best method for sharing her feelings with Jake). The good news was that after all of that running, she didn’t feel cold anymore. 

Bad news, she realized, was that she hadn’t packed her metrocard into her little clutch. She remembered thinking back on packing things up. _Why would I need my metrocard at the wedding?_ She also didn’t bring any cards with her, a stupid oversight on her part. She had tucked some cash away to use as a tip at the open bar, but upon trying the machine, she found that it wasn’t currently taking cash, and she couldn’t just slip under the turnstile like she wanted to—although she _did_ have her badge on her (you never know, okay?), so she _could_ slip under and show her badge and use that… But that would be a breach of the rules that she’d taken an oath to, she’d be using her position as a detective for personal gain, even if the personal gain was simply bypassing a $9 metrocard simply because she didn’t have her card on her…

She sighed, looking around the tiny station to figure out _what_ she should do. Finally, she resorted to walking to the subway attendant. 

“Hi!” She sounded way more cheery than she really wanted to. She was actually just a bundle of nerves, her anxiety increasing by the second as her arrival time at his apartment was pushed further and further.

The attendant looked up at her, bored. “Can I help you?” 

Amy tried to ignore the hint of attitude in her voice and the way that she made a face at Amy’s current outfit. “Yeah, I,” Amy laughed uncomfortably. “It’s so funny, I actually was in a wedding, but I had to leave abruptly, and in the mix of everything I forgot my metrocard—”

“Metrocard machine is right over there.” She interrupted, pointing her finger toward the machine, then turning back to whatever she was doing before. 

Amy blinked. “Okay, the problem is—”

“Do I look like a tech person to you? If it isn’t working, call the number on the front of the machine.” The woman rolled her eyes. 

Amy let out a frustrated sigh. “No. The _problem_ ,” she continued a little more forcefully, prompting the woman to look back up at her with a blank expression, “is that I only have cash on me, and it isn’t accepting cash. I left my cards at home, but I do have cash on me. So I was wondering—”

The woman sighed. “Look, if you don’t have a metrocard and you don’t have a card to buy a metrocard, you should probably take a bus or call a cab or something. They take cash.” Amy blinked furiously at the woman, who just raised her eyebrows at her like she was an idiot. She jabbed her finger toward the exit. “Stairs are over there.” 

“Okay, _listen,”_ Amy started back up, now frustrated beyond belief. “I’m trying to go tell my best friend that I have feelings for him before it’s too late, so an hour long cab ride out of the city isn’t really a possibility for me—”

“No, _you_ listen, 27 Dresses—”

Amy gasped. “Did you just call me 27 Dresses?”

“Excuse me,” a voice called from behind them. 

Amy held her hand up toward the voice without looking. “One second, please. I’m about to show this—”

“Ames.”

She stopped dead in the middle of her sentence, inhaling sharply as she recognized the voice behind her. She spun on her heel, coming face to face with Jake Peralta. She opened her mouth to speak, but faltered, ultimately closing her mouth and staring at him with wide eyes and, she was sure, a blush that was attributed more to whatever he’d just overheard than the way that she’d just sprinted across Manhattan. 

He bit his lip to try and fight off the smile that was growing on his lips. “Sorry, you were talking about how you needed to go tell your best friend that you had feelings for him?” 

Her face was burning, and she hoped it wasn’t as obvious to him as she was pretty sure it would be. She breathed a bit of an uncomfortable laugh at him, her eyes scanning over him quickly. He was dressed _nice_. Like, nicer than she’d ever seen him dressed before. Like, a gray suit with a jacket that actually matched the pants, his shirt tucked in and everything. His hands moved up to fidget with his tie when he noticed her studying him. 

“What are you doing here?” She gestured over him. “You’re so dressed up.” 

He actually smiled at that. “I was actually going to ask you the same thing.” 

She opened her mouth to speak, then abruptly closed it again. She bit her lip. “I’m so sorry, I have, like, a lot—are you going somewhere?” 

He shifted uncomfortably, glancing around the subway station. “Uh, no, I…” He was clearly searching for an answer that he didn’t have, his hand moving to rub the back of his neck. “...was just going back to my apartment.”

She raised her eyebrows. “Yeah?” 

“Yeah,” he answered a bit more confidently. He clearly wasn’t telling the truth, but she didn’t push it. “Hey, do you wanna talk, maybe?” 

“Yeah. Yeah, that would be great. Do you wanna…” She looked around. “Here?” 

Jake laughed. “Oh, god no. Do you wanna maybe just head back to my apartment with me?” 

“I’d love to, but—” She paused to toss a pointed glare at the subway attendant, “—I don’t have my metrocard on me.” 

Jake raised an eyebrow at the subway attendant interaction, but waved her off. “I have mine. C’mon.” 

“Are you sure?” He had already turned around to walk toward the turnstile, but he turned back toward her at the question. 

“Ames, it’s like two dollars. How many times have you spotted me for lunch?” 

“Twelve,” she replied automatically.

His eyebrows scrunched together. “Wow, you knew that very quickly…” He raised his eyebrows again, smiling at her. “I got it. C’mon.” He paused, his eyebrows drawing together again. “I mean, unless you don’t want to?” 

“No, no, I want to,” she answered quickly, taking a few steps toward him. He didn’t move as quickly as she was, so they awkwardly bumped into each other. She heard the subway attendant make an amused sound from her boxed off area, and she wasn’t sure if she wanted to go yell at the woman or if she wanted to disappear into thin air at this mildly uncomfortable situation she’d found herself in. She hadn’t had any time to plan out what she was going to say to him and he was just _there_ , dressed so nice and she had just been running across the city like a crazy person and he clearly heard her say she was going to tell her best friend she had feelings for him and did he know that she meant him? 

Jake just grinned and turned around, sliding his way through the terminal and then handing his card off to Amy. “Wouldn’t want you to miss your chance to talk to your friend,” he added with a sly smile. She avoided his eyes as she swiped through, and as soon as she pushed through the turnstile, she heard a voice behind her. 

“Would you look at that—you found a way!” The attendant paused to laugh. “Good luck, 27 Dresses.” 

Amy glared over at the woman, trying to ignore Jake’s laughter. “What’d you do to that lady, Santiago?” 

She turned her glare toward Jake. “Nothing! I was just trying to ask her a question.” 

Jake was still teasing her about it when they walked onto the subway platform, and things between them almost felt normal for a moment. For a second, it occurred to her that the setting of this conversation didn’t matter as much as the content. The platform was almost entirely empty, just one man sitting on a bench and a small group of performers over by a wide post. There were two men with guitars and one with makeshift drums. The one standing closest to the front seemed to take notice of them. She was just about to start talking when the man addressed them.

“Hey, man. Weren’t you just down here?” 

Jake looked around wildly, like he could’ve been talking to anyone else. “What? Me?” His voice went up an octave. “No. You must be thinking of someone else.” 

The man laughed. “Huh. Yeah… I don’t think so. I think I’d remember if I saw _two_ guys all dressed up like that.” 

Jake laughed uncomfortably. “Well you must be mistaken because I just got here from out there,” he jabbed his finger backward, in the wrong direction of the exit, she noticed. “I haven’t been on a subway all day.” 

“And now you’ve got your girl there. She’s pretty, too.” The man gestured to Amy with a friendly smile. She looked at Jake, who glanced at her and then straight back at the man, seeming to shift slightly in front of her. 

“She’s not—” He turned to look at Amy again. “I’m not—”

“Uh-huh.” The guy turned and started saying something to the man next to him, and Amy tried to politely avert her eyes from the blush creeping across Jake’s neck. He was still avoiding her eyes when the first notes of guitar filtered through the subway platform. 

The man made direct eye contact with Jake as he began singing the opening line of a song that immediately had Amy stifling her laughter and Jake staring at the ground even more intensely. 

_Wise men say only fools rush in._

The man wiggled his eyebrows at Amy and tipped his head in Jake’s direction as he continued. 

_But he can’t help falling in love with you._

The man continued singing, and Jake looked over at Amy curiously, pretending that he didn’t notice the slight change in lyrics. “I totally wasn’t down here,” he mumbled, shrugging his shoulder. Amy nodded, careful to keep her expression neutral. Jake shrugged again, then pulled at the knot on his tie a little, squirming under the performer’s gaze as he continued the song. “Like, wouldn’t make any sense for me to come all the way out here and then turn right back around to go home, right? He probably just thinks I look like somebody else.” 

Amy nodded, watching from the corner of her eye as Jake stared up at the ceiling. She was glad that she wasn’t the only one squirming a little at the other’s presence, but she was also pretty sure that she shouldn’t start this conversation with Jake being so visibly uncomfortable. When they saw the train in the distance, she walked over and dropped a few dollars into the performer’s bucket. 

The man tilted his head at her, a wide smile on his face as he finished the song. 

_Oh, and he can’t help falling in love with you._

Jake practically dragged her into the subway car, pretending he didn’t hear the performer shout _have a good night, kids!_ It turned out that without the music, things somehow got exponentially more awkward. Why _was_ he there? Why was he dressed up? Had he been on his way to a date or something? What was she going to say to him? She hadn’t anticipated having him next to her as she rehearsed the words that she’d wanted to say to him. She kind of pictured running up to his door and just rambling through a three minute explanation all on one breath before she lost her nerve. But now that he was here, now that this was a _conversation_ , not just a rushed explanation that she’d rehearsed thirty times in her head, she wasn’t sure what would happen. It went from all being in her control to being completely out of her control, and it had her sneaking glances at him throughout the entire ride. 

Jake seemed to be preoccupied with his own thoughts. They sat a few inches away from each other, careful not to touch. He glanced at the list of stops every so often as if he were counting down. She stared at the floor, trying to ignore him next to her and just _figure out what the hell she would say_. 

She apparently got lost in her thoughts, because Jake was standing up next to her way sooner than she’d expected, and she didn’t even have half of her speech planned out. Could she call it a speech, really? She definitely should have planned this out on the notes in her phone or something. 

Part of her thought that when they stepped out of the subway station, the tension between them would dissipate. They were right by his apartment, it was familiar, it was _them_. Even with everything between them, they were friends, and they could talk about all of this. It would be okay. 

But when they got off the subway, nothing felt less tense at all. In fact, it almost seemed _more_ tense. 

What were they going to do in his apartment? Was that really the best place to have this talk? The last time she was at his apartment, they did way more than talk. Actually… _Every time_ she’d been at his apartment, barring that one time they watched Tangled, they’d done way more than just talking. How was she supposed to just… go talk to him there, like they weren’t practically in a museum of their romantic (could you call it romantic?) history? 

They were about a block away from his apartment when he abruptly stopped next to her. Amy turned her head to look at him, confusion written all over her face. “You okay?” 

Jake chuckled quietly. “I don’t know. Can we…” He trailed off, looking around the street. “What if we don’t go to my apartment just yet?” 

She had no idea where they were going, and she kind of wished she’d brought a jacket, but she was glad that she and Jake were unknowingly on the same page. Going somewhere other than his apartment sounded perfect. “Actually, that sounds great.” 

“Great.” He smiled at her. “This way.” 

—

He’d resisted reaching out and taking her hand as he turned to lead her toward the park he had in mind. It was a quiet little place a few blocks away, just a place he went to think sometimes. It had been the backdrop to many a cracked case, and he was hoping that being there would clear his head the way he needed to work through all of the _many_ thoughts he was having. 

Like, for example, she _had been_ talking about him, right? But then why were things so awkward? He had this weird mixture of feelings building up in his chest—hope, excitement, desire, some confusing fear about what was to come, maybe even a little fear regarding Amy in general. Fear wasn’t the right word, but maybe a broad awareness that she held so much of his heart, and an understanding of what that could mean for him—what it had meant for him in the past. Even if she was talking about him, her admitting that she had feelings for him didn’t necessarily mean that they would be together. And also… Was there some police code that approved him arresting that subway performer for public embarrassment? 

This was the most comfortable way to do this, and yet he still found himself fidgeting all the way there. Was it because of the situation in general? Because of the _very_ well performed _he can’t help falling in love with you_ still echoing around in his head—and the fact that, subsequently, he knew it was accurate? Was it the thought of taking her back to his apartment and sitting next to her on his couch, trying to push through all of the feelings to have a conversation that… What conversation even _was it?_

He wasn’t sure, but he knew that he had enough trouble extricating her presence from the fibers of his furniture without adding their final goodbye, if that’s what this turned out to be. He hoped that wasn’t the outcome, but he was more than aware that it was a possibility. He could see this going one of two ways. Assuming he _was_ , in fact, the best friend in question—which, perhaps he was just being hopeful, not realistic, but… 

She’d tell him she had feelings for him. Then they’d talk about it, decide that they’d been missing out on what he thought could be something great, and they’d start working on making up for lost time, whatever that meant. Or, alternatively, she’d tell him she had feelings for him. They’d talk about it. She’d begin ticking off the long list of reasons that it would never work between them (starting, he reminded himself, with _you’re too immature, not fiscally responsible_ , to which he’d refute with _I’ve started saving $200 a month just by buying John Wick instead of renting it every two nights,_ but he was sure that there were points on her list that he’d never even thought about). He’d do his best to counter every point she made. They were good for that, had been from the very beginning—teasing each other, countering each other, covering each other. He missed it, and he didn’t want to let it go. 

He resorted to simply trying to stop noticing her for the rest of the walk. Easier said than done if she were just a normal passerby, not even taking into account the fact that he was completely smitten with the woman next to him. As it was, her heels clicked next to him with each step, and the sound drew his eyes toward her legs. She had her dress held up so it didn’t drag on the sidewalk as they walked, and he glanced at her legs with two thoughts in mind: she’s probably freezing and _stop looking at her legs_. That thought would send his eyes on a search for something else to focus on, and what made more sense than to follow the fabric of her dress up? His eyes climbed the navy fabric, a color he’d seen her in dozens of times, but that somehow had never seemed more beautiful. His eyes clung to her curves until he was led to the exposed skin where the fabric draped across her back, his eyes drawn to her bare shoulder blades and his train of thought went from: _she’s gotta be freezing_ to _has she been shivering?_ to _she shivers when you kiss that spot right there_ , his eyes focusing in on that spot right above her right shoulder blade. 

Then he was shaking his head at himself because _pull it together, Peralta._ It’s a good thing you didn’t go back to your apartment—although… she’s definitely freezing. She’s always cold. His eyes flickered back over to her, following the thin, silver necklace where the chain lay against the back of her neck. Her hair was all curled and tucked and pinned into this pretty arrangement that he couldn’t quite follow. Little wisps of hair peeked out, loose tendrils clearly displaced from what he was sure had been a pristine style just a few hours earlier. Truthfully, he was willing to bet that it looked even prettier all disheveled like this than it had when she’d gotten it done. 

And then they were there. 

He sucked in a sharp breath as he walked her toward the bench overlooking the pond, the bench where he always sat. His fingers moved straight to the armrest to pick at the faded black paint there, an absentminded plea for normalcy. The thought bounced around his head one final time as she took her place next to him. She intentionally sat straight up, her back not colliding with the cold wood of the bench. He wondered if it would be okay for him to give her his jacket, then decided that it maybe wasn’t the best way to start this all out. 

What _was_ the best way to start? Should he start? Should he wait for her? He glanced out at the pond, trying helplessly to get his thoughts to slow down, but then he just couldn’t handle the thick silence between them any longer. 

He sighed. “This is going to sound so weird. Like, there’s a chance you might think I’m a stalker.” He allowed his eyes to stray to her face for a moment, and her expression showed concern more than confusion. He pulled his hands into his lap, then looked down. “I knew where you were going to be, because you’ve been talking about this wedding for weeks, and then I just looked Kylie up on instagram and she’d tagged the wedding venue in her most recent post and—” He paused, taking a deep breath. He wanted to look over at her again, but the thought of her reaction had him focusing on his shoes. “The idea kind of happened before I had a chance to stop it.”

“What idea?” She looked up at him. 

He shook his head, gesturing at his outfit as if it had been obvious. “I was on my way to crash Kylie’s wedding. So I could see you. Or talk to you, or…” He shook his head, looking away from her again. “I know it’s crazy.” He swallowed, his eyebrows pinching together as he thought. “I just didn’t want to leave things the way we did.” 

It took quite a bit of effort for him to look over at her as he continued talking. She deserved his full attention as he told her all of this. “I don’t want you to think that I didn’t tell you out of spite, or because I didn’t care enough to tell you, or whatever bad things you were probably thinking.” He sighed, but he maintained her eye contact. “I didn’t tell you I was leaving because I didn’t know how to say it to you. You’re the most important person to me,” he stumbled a little, tacking on, “at the nine-nine. And I was afraid that you’d be mad, or that you wouldn’t care that I was leaving, or that you’d ask me to stay.” He got quiet, and he turned his head away from her again. “But I can’t stay there and sit across the desk from you and pretend that I don’t want more.” 

She looked at him thoughtfully as he continued. “And I was going to tell you. But then I pushed it off too long and the days turned into weeks and then what was I supposed to say? ‘Hey, Ames, sorry I waited forever but by the way I’m leaving in three days?’” He scoffed and shook his head. “So then whatever fear I was feeling before multiplied and I just…” He took another deep breath, letting it out on a sigh. “I suck.” 

“You don’t suck.” She shook her head at him. “If anybody sucks, it’s me.” 

“You don’t—” He began, but he paused when he saw the serious expression she was aiming at him. 

She sighed. “I could name about thirty ways that I’ve messed this all up just off the top of my head.” She swallowed, and he watched as she turned her head to face forward again. “I was scared.” She shook her head. “I still am. I’m so scared because, ya’know, I didn’t ask for any of this. I had this whole plan and you—” She looked up at him, the corner of her lips tugging into what was almost a smile. “You were never a part of my plan, Jake.”

“You weren’t a part of my plan, either.”

“But Jake—I plan _everything_. I planned to become a detective when I was six years old, and I committed to it. And not just ‘I want to be a police officer when I grow up,’ like ‘these are the classes I’ll have to take in college to be the most prepared so that I can be the best in my academy class.’ At six years old. And you know, you were the first person that I was with after I broke up with Teddy. That night was supposed to just be meaningless rebound sex.” 

He stared at her for a long moment, the question he wanted to ask seemingly stuck in his throat. She looked over at him. “Was it?” 

He was sure that the vulnerability was clear in his face even before he looked down and played with one of the buttons on his suit jacket to distract himself, and even if it hadn’t been, his voice definitely gave him away. He could feel her eyes still on him as she replied, her voice soft. “I don’t think anything between us has ever really just been meaningless.” 

He looked over at her, but she turned her head as soon as their eyes met, shying away from him. “So I was afraid that being in a relationship with you,” she paused, hesitating, “if that’s even what you wanted… I was afraid that it would cause problems for me and my plan to be the youngest captain in the NYPD.” She twisted her fingers together. “But even more than that I was afraid of what it would mean for our friendship.” She glanced at him, but her eyes left his face as quickly as they’d landed there. “Your friendship is really important to me, and so I wanted to preserve that. And in doing so, I think I fucked it up worse than I would’ve if we actually dated and broke up.” 

They both went silent again, though this silence didn’t feel quite as heavy to him as when they’d first arrived. He was searching for the right thing to say, but his mind didn’t feel quite so clouded. He looked up at the sky, watched the puffy, gray clouds pass by, allowing tiny bits of pale sunlight to filter through them. 

“Uh, so…” Her voice sounded decidedly different, so he turned to give her his full attention. She turned slightly more toward him, but her eyes were aimed somewhere in the area of his chest instead of at his face. She took a deep, slow breath. “You maybe already heard…” His lips tugged into a smile as she continued. “But I have feelings. For you.”

She paused, and after a moment, her wide eyes flickered up to his face. Her eyebrows pulled together as she gauged his reaction, which, _c’mon_ , she had to know was going to be positive. He bit the smile away from his bottom lip, trying his hardest to put on what was probably the least convincing poker face of his life. 

He gasped softly. “Oh my god, Ames… Are you saying I’m your best friend?” 

That did exactly what he hoped it would. She shook her head at him, her laughter seemingly surprising her as it fell from her lips. She smacked him lightly on the shoulder. “Shut up, Jake.” 

He laughed softly, but it faded after a moment. “No, really. You kind of became my best friend, too. And I’m sorry things have been so bad between us.” 

“It’s more my fault than yours.” She shrugged, and they both looked back toward the water. “I’m sorry, too.”

“I have feelings for you, too.” He maintained the spot he was looking at, focusing on the way the water sparkled across from them. “Still. Never stopped.” 

“I think…” She took a deep breath. “I think even now, I just find all these signs and reasons that we shouldn’t be together.” 

He hummed quietly. “Have you ever thought about signs that we _should?”_ He held her eye contact, pushing away the urge to look away. She visibly shivered, and he immediately began to shrug off his suit jacket. 

“Don’t give me your jacket, Jake.” 

“You’re cold.” 

“I’m fine.”

“Then—” He stopped talking, keeping his eyes on her as he slid closer to her. She didn’t stop him as he wrapped an arm around her, and while she seemed hesitant at first, she quickly leaned into his warmth. She reached her arms underneath his suit jacket, and he tried not to focus on the way her fingers felt on his sides as they curled around the fabric of his shirt.

She leaned her head against his chest, and he allowed himself to rest his cheek on the top of her head. He breathed her in, the smell of some unfamiliar hairspray mingling with her shampoo and creating a different, still-Amy scent for him to catalogue into his memory. This could be it. This could really be the last time he got to hold her. He closed his eyes, tightening his arms around her, because if this is the last time he’d get to be with her, he was going to make the most of it.

“Rosa doesn’t think it’s funny,” Amy began, her words falling against his neck as she adjusted, her head fitting on his shoulder like that’s was it was made for, “when I tell your jokes.” 

“You tell my jokes?” He was glad she couldn’t see his face from where she was, because he couldn’t wipe the stupid smile off his face if he tried. 

“Not always. Usually I just think about it. When there’s a good set up, I can almost hear it in your voice.” She laughed humorlessly. “Every now and then I slip up. Rosa always rolls her eyes at me when it happens.” 

He closed his eyes and nuzzled his face against her hair. This is how he wanted to remember her. Happy, snuggled into his side. If he had to say goodbye, this is how he wanted to do it. All of their goodbyes prior to this hurt, but now he felt nothing but warmth for her. 

“Once I ordered pizza and I let it sit on my counter for a while so that it would be cold—”

“Display temperature,” he corrected. 

She laughed, and it tugged his heart somehow even further into her grasp. “Display temperature,” she repeated. “Because I know that’s how you like it.” 

For the first time, it occurred to him that _maybe_ , just maybe, this wasn’t a goodbye. Maybe she wasn’t setting him up with _finding signs we shouldn’t be together_. And yeah, maybe he shouldn’t get his hopes up just yet… But it was getting a lot harder to shove them back down. He should keep his expectations realistic. This wasn’t the first time he’d felt like things between them were getting serious, and he’d been wrong every other time. 

He swallowed, his voice hollow. “Did you like it?” 

She laughed again. “No. But I liked that it was yours.” 

“Amy…”

“I drafted texts to you about a hundred times in the past month. None of them ever seemed like they were enough.” 

“Enough for what?” 

“For you. To tell you how I feel about you, or to make it up to you, or to apologize for every…” She trailed off for a moment, and he felt her shake her head. “For every time that I’ve fucked this up, and every time that I let you think that I didn’t care about you when these feelings have been here for months, I was just too stupid, or too stubborn, or too scared to admit it, and every time you pushed for more I pulled away even though all I wanted was you. And now your things are in a box in the back of your car and everything’s so…”

She trailed off, and he just held her. His free hand rubbed up and down her arm, soothing the goosebumps away. He couldn’t say for certain what it was about her. There was this dull ache inside of him for her—to hold her, to really know her, to love her. He wanted to give her all the pieces of himself that he’d never given to anyone else, and that desire didn’t go away even after everything he’d been through with her. It was unlike any relationship he’d been in, but then… She was unlike any woman he’d been with. 

“I think about you, sometimes.” She began again, her voice almost sounding distant. He shifted so he could see a slight angle of her face, but she wasn’t looking at him. “More often than not. And I wonder if you’re thinking about me, too.” 

“I am.” 

She pulled out of his arms suddenly, her eyebrows drawn together as she looked at him. “You don’t even know when I’m thinking about you.” 

“Doesn’t matter. I am.” He returned her gaze just as seriously. “I always am.” 

She looked into his eyes, and it was impossible for him to shove his hope into the back of his mind. Her expression was soft, just a hint of sadness swimming in her dark eyes. “So… What happens now?” 

He kept his eyes on hers, assessing her with every movement he made. He reached forward, his palm gently cupping her cheek. He moved in slow, and he watched as her eyes fluttered shut in anticipation of the kiss. Right before his lips touched hers, he stopped, nuzzling his nose against hers slightly, his voice just barely a whisper. “Maybe we stop pulling away.” 

And then he was kissing her, a kiss so soft that it put all those _soft kisses_ from when they met to shame. He held her like she was precious to him, she _was_ precious to him. _Is_. His other hand moved to cradle her face properly, and her fingers laced into the hair at the nape of his neck. 

He didn’t pull all the way back when they broke apart. She leaned her forehead against his, her fingers moving to that space below his jaw, and they breathed each other in. 

After a moment, he pulled away enough that he could look at her. He smiled, a little huff of laughter leaving his lips. “You look really pretty, by the way. Your dress makes you look like a mermaid.” 

The face she made at him may have had him feeling a little self-conscious at the specific compliment, but then she was smiling at him, and that was all that mattered. She laughed. “I made a fool of myself on the dancefloor at my friend’s wedding, then I ran around the city like a crazy person. I probably look like a mess.” 

He grinned at her, twirling one of her loose curls around his fingers and tucking it behind her ear. “Most beautiful mess I’ve ever seen.” 

She leaned in and kissed him again, her smile interrupting the kiss, but he couldn’t find it in him to care. He’d take any kiss she offered him, broken by smiles or otherwise. She leaned her forehead against his again, and he felt something within him that wasn’t entirely unfamiliar. In moments like these, that little ache inside of him felt more like a comfortable stretch, as if his heart were making space to accommodate her presence. He felt, with certainty and a bit of hopefulness, that she’d always have a place there. 

She shivered again, and he rubbed his hands over her arms to bring her a little warmth. He pulled back to look at her, and she smiled shyly. 

“You want me to walk you home? It’s freezing.” He wanted to get her inside, but he didn’t want to push her to come to his apartment if she wasn’t ready. 

She eyed him curiously. “Could we maybe go to your apartment?”

His lips tugged into a smile as he stood up, offering her his hand. “Sounds perfect.”

They were about three minutes into the walk when those puffy clouds above them completely betrayed them. It didn’t start slowly. There was no awareness, no _was that a raindrop?_ Instead, all at once, there was torrential downpour. 

They resorted to gasps and squeals and _oh my god_ s, both of them running closer to their destination. It quickly became apparent that Amy shouldn’t be running, her feet slipping in her heels with each step on the wet concrete. They slowed down, both of them already entirely soaked. Jake took her hand, and she smiled over at him. He’d never been so happy to be caught in the rain in his life. 

He twirled her around on the street, the evening darkness leaving everything in a dim, glowy haze around them. She laughed at him. This was ridiculous, and they both knew it, but neither of them could stop smiling at the other. They were soaking in these moments together, the sound of heavy rainfall with their interspersed laughter the only soundtrack as they followed the vacant streets to his apartment. 

He didn’t let go of her hand until they got to his door, where he turned to shove his key into the lock, granting them access to the apartment. As soon as he nudged the door open, he turned to look at her, a smile spreading across his face. They were really doing this. They just walked to his apartment together _holding hands_. In _public_. He had an overwhelming feeling that once they walked through the door, things would never be the same. It was all he wanted. She smiled back at him and he bit his lip, his heart swelling as he took her in. She was glistening, beads of water dripping all over her, but she didn’t look at all affected. Their eyes flickered over each other, from eyes, to lips, and back. His cheeks hurt from smiling, and then all of a sudden, he wasn’t smiling anymore. 

Her arms wrapped around his neck as she closed the distance between them, surprising him with the force at which she joined him and pushing him back against the doorframe. A little satisfied groan escaped his throat as she kissed him, and he’d be embarrassed if he could find it in himself to care about anything other than kissing her. And, he reminded himself, if she hadn’t pulled sounds like those out of him countless times in the past. 

The only thing soft about this kiss was her lips. Everything around him disappeared until there was only her, pushing him against the wall and simultaneously pulling him closer by his jacket. They were on his front porch, rain still pouring down around them, but all he could hear was his heartbeat thrumming in his ears. Her fingers brushed through his hair, and _god_ , all he wanted was to live in this moment forever. 

He found himself trailing his way down to her neck, his lips tingling in every place that they pressed against her skin. She was wearing a perfume he didn’t recognize, a hint of a sweet scent he didn’t catch until his face was hidden in the crook of her neck. She tugged at his shirt, untucking it and sliding her hand underneath, a welcome warmth replacing the cold, damp shirt sticking to him. 

They stayed that way for a moment, pushing and pulling for more on his doorstep, the door wide open next to them. Eventually, a passerby honked their horn, causing both Jake and Amy to jump and turn to bashfully glance at the offender. The cab driver gave them a thumbs-up, and Amy turned to look at Jake with wide eyes, her lips parted in surprise. 

He laughed at her, his heart full as he leaned his forehead on hers. He pressed a soft kiss to her lips. “We should probably head inside.” 

“Mhm.” 

Neither of them moved. They stood together, eye contact unwavering until another car horn startled Amy against his chest. He laughed again, pulling her inside with him. 

As soon as the door was closed, he was pushing her against it. Water dripped off of them all over his floor, but neither of them had any concern for the state of the hardwood. He probably wasn’t getting his security deposit back, anyway. They worked to shift his jacket off of his shoulders, then she tugged at his tie until the knot loosened, slipping it over his head and tossing it to the floor. Her hands moved straight to his buttons, making slippery work of trying to discard his wet shirt. He ran his hands up her sides, up her back, experimenting with touches he’d gone so long without. He toed his shoes off at the door, his wet socks following, and then they were shuffling across the floor together. 

He stumbled to pull a chair out from the table without breaking his contact with her, and she pushed his shirt off of his shoulders, her rhythmic hums breaking up their kiss about every fourth breath or so. He didn’t have much of a plan, exactly, when he lowered her into the chair, but he found himself sinking to his knees, his eyes intense on hers. 

She laughed softly when he pulled her foot into his lap, trying to keep the wet fabric out of his way as he unbuckled the strap on her heel. When he shifted to retrieve her other foot, he paused to slide the fabric up above her knee. He rubbed his hands across her calf, trying to soothe away the goosebumps, littering a few kisses across her skin until his focus was on the tiny buckle on her other shoe. He threw her heels off to the side, looking up at her with a smile. She smiled back, her teeth pressing into her bottom lip and… it just kind of seemed like if anybody was going to be biting her bottom lip, it should be him. He kissed his way back up one of her legs, pushing the fabric higher in order to reach her thighs. She shifted her legs further apart to accommodate him, and he grinned against her skin. She was too eager, and he loved it.

He held his hand out to her as he stood up, pulling her back into his arms. He sighed into their kiss when her fingers pressed into his back, pulling his body closer to her. He felt so wanted, so _needed_ , every part of him being tugged closer to her, and he reciprocated with everything he had. Her fingers found his belt buckle, and he hummed as she slid his belt through the loops, tossing it on the floor to join her shoes. 

His search for her zipper was proving impossible, but he knew the damn thing wouldn’t come off of her unless it unzipped somewhere. He’d touched virtually every inch of the dress, and it wasn’t one of those stretchy ones that he could just pull off of her. She giggled into the kiss when she realized what he was doing, guiding his hand to the tiny, dainty zipper on the side of her ribs. Stupid place for a zipper if you ask him, but it didn’t matter because he was sliding it through its track, his knuckles brushing against her bare skin underneath. 

She was already working his button when he pulled out of the kiss to get a better look at the clasp near the top of the zipper, and he somehow managed to undo the tiny thing without breaking it, even when her lips found that spot on his neck. He gasped as she bit down on his neck, then she was working on sliding his pants down his thighs. He stepped out of his pants as bunched her dress up in his hands, sliding that thin, slippery material up her body until they had to break apart so he could carefully pull it over her head. 

He groaned again as the dress fell to the floor. She wasn’t wearing a bra underneath, and his hands immediately found work on her chest while her hands delved into the last remaining piece of clothing he wore, gently stroking him and prompting his eyes to drift shut. 

“God, you’re easy,” she whispered against his jaw as his head tipped back a little. 

“Mhm,” he agreed, a little moan escaping his lips as she tightened her grip. 

Then they were shifting, pushing and pulling until both of them stood in front of one another, hands roving over entirely bare skin. 

As quickly as things had heated up, they slowed down. Their breathing all shallow, he dragged his fingers across her hips as he shifted behind her. His erection pressed against her lower back, and he hummed as her fingers traced up and down his outer thighs behind her. He found that spot above her shoulder blade, barely brushing his lips against it and groaning softly as she shivered. He loved that he could make her do that. His lips forged a path up her spine until he was at the back of her neck, shifting to unclasp her necklace. His breath fell against her neck, and the tension between them was thick as he shifted the necklace in front of her to reclasp. Her head turned slightly as she watched him set it on the table. He swallowed, and he was quite certain that she did, too. 

His fingers traced up her sides, inspiring goosebumps for a whole new reason. He stood up straight, taking in the task in front of him. She had what he would swear was a hundred bobby pins in her hair. He located them, one by one, gently pulling them out of her hair. Every few pins, he’d stop to scatter a few kisses across whichever part of her he felt like—her neck, mostly, but also her back, her shoulders, her cheek once. She stayed mostly quiet, save for when sucked that sensitive spot on her neck between his teeth, at which point she momentarily shifted their entire position by pushing closer to him, moaning his name and making him lose his train of thought— _and_ his bobby pin count. Now he’d never know if there were actually one hundred. 

He ran his fingers through her hair, making sure that he’d gotten the last of the pins out before tossing the final few in his hands into the pile on the table. For a brief moment, he thought about pushing the pile off of the table, pushing her onto the table instead, but he wasn’t entirely sure about the structural integrity of the table, and he would _not_ like to find out by breaking it with Amy underneath him.

Instead, he pulled her partially damp hair back, pushing it so that it fell over one shoulder. His lips were soft, trailing from her bare shoulder until he was kissing the space below her ear, his breath tickling against her skin until her little hums turned into sighs. 

He pressed one kiss against her cheek, then turned so his lips ghosted against her ear. 

“I’ve missed you.” 

It would be easy enough to assume that he meant he missed her _like this_. He missed her, naked, horny, making little breathy sounds for him, which, of course, was true. 

But it was more than that. He _missed her_. He missed her smile, and the way she tucked her hair behind her ears. He missed her annoying him on cases, missed looking over at her in the passenger seat, concentrating too hard on the file in front of her to even notice him stealing glances. He missed her voice, the whispers, all the soft moments where he could just hold her. He tightened his arms around her waist now, pressing one more kiss to her jaw, then resting his chin on her shoulder. 

He didn’t have to explain himself. She knew. She twisted around in his arms slowly, her fingers carding through his mostly dry hair as she kissed him—soft, slow, languid. Within a few moments, he was lifting her into his arms. There was none of the urgency that had been between them so many times before. They didn’t stumble to his bedroom. He walked carefully, one of his hands sliding up the middle of her back, allowing himself to get lost in the way her tongue moved against his. 

He pressed her into the bed, fitting comfortably between her legs, holding himself up with an elbow on either side of her body. He bit her lip gently as he pulled away, intent on kissing down her body, but he’d only made it to her chest when she caught his attention. 

“Jake—” 

The way she said his name wasn’t soft and breathy. It was urgent, but not in an _I need you_ sort of way. She said it like they were at work, like she was staring across the crime scene at a man who perfectly fit the description of their perp. Low and commanding, like she needed his attention. He was sure that one day she’d realize that she always had it, but for now, he looked up at her with a patient, inquisitive glance.

Her breath left her in a little huff, a sort of soundless laughter, her dark eyes trained on his. “I like you so much.” 

That was it. The hint of a grin that had been tugging at his lips when he looked up at her face stretched into a full blown smile. He shifted off of her, pulling her slightly so that she settled against his chest. She snuggled against him, pulling the blankets up a little closer around them. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder, kissing the top of her head when she leaned in. 

“I like you,” he replied, a smile in his voice. 

He trailed his fingertips between her shoulder blades, just breathing her in for a moment. He almost wanted to laugh. A few months ago, he never would’ve believed that he and Amy would pause in the middle of what he’s sure was about to be _fantastic_ reunion sex so that she could lay her head on his chest, closing her eyes happily at the sound of his heart beating in her ear. 

“So are we really doing this, Peralta?” 

Jake smiled, pressing a kiss against her forehead. “I guess that depends on what exactly you’re talking about, Santiago. If you’re asking me if I’ll rob a bank with you, I regret to inform you that while I look the part, I’m actually not the bad boy that people peg me as.” He smirked obviously at her. 

She rolled her eyes, adjusting on his chest and propping her chin up on her arm, smirking back at him. “Romantic stylez, dummy.” Her expression softened, and the look in her eyes made him feel warm all over. “Are we doing this?” 

He held her gaze, quietly soaking in the moment. “I’m in if you are.” 

She looked like she was trying to hold back her smile, but it spread across her face anyway. He loved seeing it there, but he had the strongest urge to kiss the expression away from her lips. “I’m in.” He watched as a thought popped into her head. She bit her lip momentarily, suppressing her smile. “On one condition.” 

He quirked an eyebrow at her. “Shoot.” 

She shifted in his arms, and he ran his fingertips across the small of her back. “I get to be the little spoon tonight.” 

He gasped in mock offense. “How _dare you?”_

He shifted her around, and she giggled as his fingers skimmed across her sides. He wrapped an arm around her, pressing her back closer to his chest. He hummed quietly as he kissed her neck, his fingers tracing shapes on her ribs. 

“Totally worth it,” he whispered against her skin. She giggled softly, then her quiet, satisfied hum was broken up by a yawn. He chuckled, his other hand moving up to start playing with her hair. 

“Mmmm, no,” she whined, wiggling her hips a little closer to him with intention. 

He shook his head, but he moved right back to kissing her neck. He wanted her. Like, he _really_ wanted her. But there was also a part of him that just wanted tonight to be theirs. Jake and Amy as a couple, falling asleep in his bed with no sex, no expectations, just each other. He’d deny thinking it if anybody asked him, but that sounded just as good as sex to him.

Okay, if he were being entirely honest, maybe not _quite_ as good—it’d been a long time since they had been together, and they kind of had a lot of build up toward sex—but it was close. And Amy sleepily yawning for a second time cemented in his mind that she was tired. She’d had a long day, and he was happy to just hold her. They had all the time in the world to do more than that. 

He paused, his lips brushing against her earlobe as he whispered to her, only slightly more suggestive than not. “Go to sleep, Ames.” She wiggled her hips again, and his breath hitched. His body was definitely more on her side than his. “We have time for that when you’re not sleepy.” He continued playing with her hair, and she snuggled closer a little more innocently. “Just let me hold you.” 

He pulled the blanket up a little higher around them. He peppered kisses across her shoulder, smiling to himself when he can tell her breathing has slowed down. He craned a little closer, leaning his head against hers. 

“Goodnight, Ames.”

She hummed softly, and he kissed her on the cheek. 

Yeah. This was more than enough for him. 

—

He inhaled deeply, immediately aware of the scent overwhelming his senses. His eyes blinked open, momentarily stunned by the light, and within seconds he had his face buried in Amy’s hair. 

It wasn’t a dream. 

The highlights of the night before started flashing through his mind: the look in Amy’s eyes when she turned around to face him in the subway station; Amy looking into his eyes, saying she has feelings for him; kissing her, peeling her wet dress off, holding her— _Amy_. It was all evidenced by the way she was still in his arms, and he gave himself a moment to adjust to the light before he was smiling at the woman in his arms. 

Then he was made aware of, in all likelihood, the reason he’d woken up. Her hips stirred against him, pressing his erection between his body and hers. Her next movement seemed to have a little more intent. Instead of stirring against him, it was more like she was grinding closer, little breathy hums escaping her lips. His arm tightened around her for a moment as he succumbed to the sensation of her body on his. She adjusted, and his lips parted with a little sigh when he found himself captured between her thighs. 

Then, all at once, it started hitting him. His arm loosened around her, and he was sliding himself out of bed. She hummed in protest, her arm sliding across the sheets in search of him. 

“Where are you going?” 

He watched as her eyes fluttered open. She focused on his face for a moment, then her eyes progressed down his body, her eyebrows raising appreciatively when she focused at his waist. She bit her lip. “Good morning.” 

He felt desire twist inside him under her gaze, but there was something else, too. Something had him cursing himself for not grabbing them clothes last night. Something had him smiling at her, then making his way to the dresser to pull out a pair of sweatpants, which he hastily pulled on—a poor attempt at concealing how hard he was, a combination of the early morning and Amy—his _girlfriend_ , he reminded himself quickly, a smile gracing his lips. 

“You want breakfast?” He asked abruptly. 

She sounded a little confused, and when he turned back to look at her, she was propped up on her elbows. One of her eyebrows was raised, like she was appraising him. “You okay?” 

“What?” His voice sounded a little strange to him, and he cleared his throat before he continued. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

She didn’t look convinced when he turned back toward her. “I have to talk to Captain Holt,” he announced, and her eyebrows drew together. “I don’t technically start at the six-three until Monday, so I _think_ we can still halt the transfer, but—”

“But you have to act quickly,” she finished for him. 

He smiled. “Exactly. I figured I’d run by Holt’s, but thought you might want to grab breakfast first.”

“Holt’s in the precinct today. He had to oversee Daniels on the Smithson case.” 

Jake raised an eyebrow at her. “Should I question how you know that?” 

She grinned over at him. “Nope.” She sat up in bed, affixing the blanket around her. “I don’t have anything to wear.”

“No problem.” He turned, pulling open drawers and shuffling through them. He tossed a pair of gray NYPD sweatpants onto the bed, then shuffled through another drawer until he found a long sleeve shirt for her. “You can wear this stuff and we’ll swing by your apartment to grab normal clothes before Holt can see you.” He smiled over at her, then another thought occurred to him. 

“Oh—” He turned once again, opening a different drawer. He sifted through varying colors of boxers, trying to locate the piece of fabric in question. Finally, he found them. 

He turned toward her, a pair of black, lacy underwear in his hands. 

He watched a series of expressions flash across her face. Confusion was the only one that stuck around. “Are those women’s underwear?” 

He laughed quietly. “Well they aren’t mine.” 

“Are you giving me someone else’s underwear?” 

“What? No—” He looked at them, then held them up at her with both hands so she could see them clearly. 

“Are those…” She trailed off, looking between his face and the underwear in his hands. 

He hadn’t thought to be embarrassed by this. There was a perfectly logical explanation as to why he had them, but of course she didn’t have any insight into an explanation, all she knew was that he was holding up the pair of underwear that she’d left in his hotel room on the night that they’d met. He looked like a total psycho. 

He balled them up in his hand, waving dismissively at her with the other hand before he tossed them on the bed. “Okay, I’m only just realizing how weird this looks now, but it’s not weird, I swear.” 

She was biting a smile away from her lips, and it made him feel a little better to know that apparently she wasn’t horrified—which is great, because he was pretty certain that if this moment were in a horror movie, his character would reveal that he’d been hiding under the floorboards in her apartment and stealing her belongings to get closer to her, or something. 

“Those are mine?” She asked, a little amusement in her voice. 

“You left them in my hotel room that night—”

“Over a year ago,” she interrupted. “And you took them?” 

“No, I didn’t—well, _yeah,_ I mean, I _took them_ , but I didn’t take them to _keep them.”_

“But then you did. Keep them, I mean.” 

“No—” He cut off. He was fumbling this tremendously, and he just knew the tips of his ears were bright red. “I didn’t want the cleaning staff to have to find them, and then Charles was knocking on my door, so I just stuffed them in my suitcase.” 

“And then you got home and figured you’d just keep them in your drawer?” 

_“No,”_ he rolled his eyes at her obvious teasing. “I got home and I didn’t unpack my suitcase for four months, so I completely forgot about them. By the time I found them, we were sleeping together again, so I figured you might want them back. I washed them and put them in my drawer, but then I never remembered to give them to you.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Guess I was always a little preoccupied when you were here.” 

He was raising an eyebrow at her, because for the first time, she _did_ look horrified. He was trying to backtrack in his head. Had he said something weird? He felt like that was a totally reasonable explanation. 

“You didn’t unpack your suitcase for _four months?”_

He laughed at her, shuffling through his drawers to find more presentable clothes for himself. “I didn’t need anything out of it.” 

She was still looking at him in disbelief when he made his way over to the bed, leaning over her and kissing her. “C’mon, Ames. Let’s get this over with.” 

She scoffed as he pulled away, working on getting his shirt over his head. “I _never_ thought I’d see the day when Jake Peralta was trying to drag _me_ out of bed.”

He smiled at her. “What can I say? I guess being your boyfriend has really changed me.” She was quiet for a moment, so he turned to look at her from his place in front of his closet. “What?”

Her grin stretched across her face. “Say that again.”

He raised his eyebrows at her. “Say what again?”

“You know what,” she replied, her expression unchanging.

He shrugged, turning back toward the closet. “Sorry, I can’t say it again if you’re still in bed.”

She scoffed again. “Oh my god, am I this annoying?”

He was smirking at her as he pulled on a flannel. “Oh, absolutely.” He laughed at the offended face she was making, but she was smiling again in no time. “But it’s worth it to be around you.”

She pulled his shirt over her head, shuffling to the edge of the bed to pull on her underwear and pants. She made her way over to him as soon as she was fully dressed, wrapping her arms around his waist. “Good. ‘Cause you’re not getting rid of me, now.”

“No?” He grinned at her, leaning in for a kiss.

She shook her head, pausing to kiss him. “No. Now say it again.”

“I’m your boyfriend?” He watched as her smile grew, and his widened to match. “I love the sound of it.”

She pulled away from him, her smile becoming more sly. “Jake Peralta’s girlfriend.” She tilted her head back and forth, and he wondered absentmindedly how she could possibly look this beautiful after just waking up. “Who would’ve thought?”

He grinned after her as she left his bedroom.

_Jake Peralta’s girlfriend._

He _never_ would’ve thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always: Hope you liked this chapter!! Nice comments are my only income right now, pay your local starving artist. ¨̮ 
> 
> joking, but comments and kudos always appreciated! Love you guys. 
> 
> Also why are you guys reading this?! It's SO LONG???? I mean, thank you, but: !!! it's so long!


	18. into me you'd slip

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title from I Wish I Was by the Avett Brothers! not a supes typical music choice for me but I love them and you should all listen to this song. ¨̮ 
> 
> _I wish I was a sweater wrapped around your hips,_   
>  _And when it got too cold, into me you'd slip._   
>  _And when the sun came back, you would hang me up,_   
>  _And I would watch you while you undress._
> 
> _But if I get too close,_  
>  _Will the magic fade?_  
>  _Will I turn you off or away?_  
>  _If I pull you in,_  
>  _Now would I push you out,_   
> _Of something here you care about?_
> 
> _Well I'm at a loss for what to do,_   
>  _But I'm drawn to you._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay this chapter has been finished for days but i've been tweaking it and adjusting it and stressing about it lmaoooo. hope you like it! 
> 
> TW: murder! not specific but here's a warning that the case brought up in this chapter will be an ongoing case—I'm trying to get better at writing them actually working here and there because I basically never write case related things. It won't be the main focus ever but it's going to be brought up. 
> 
> this is kind of a shameless smut chapter, feelings laced throughout, bringing us back to our roots and reminding everyone that this is a smut fic. admittedly as we near the end of the fic, the smut will be fewer and far between. I think there's one more planned chapter that's heavy on the smut and after that... shrug shrug

The next two weeks were kind of a blur. 

She had been nervous to talk to Holt for more reasons than one. First, of course, the thought that had been plaguing her mind from the moment she’d transferred to the nine-nine… What would he think? Her reliance on that question had only gotten more serious since the day she’d stiffly stepped into the bullpen, avoiding Jake’s eyes. Would he be disappointed in her? Would he be disappointed in Jake? Would he shake his head at her, utter _Santiago_ one time in B-flat? Would he pull her aside and confirm her previous suspicions that starting a relationship with Jake would ultimately be career suicide? And what would she do if he did? 

Her career presumptions aside, what if Jake couldn’t halt his transfer? What if he was stuck leaving to another precinct—a _worse_ precinct—because of their fallout? Would their new relationship be able to handle that? Would he resent her, as he should? Would he be able to transfer back at some point? Would the nine-nine be okay without him if he couldn’t? Would _she_ be okay with so much less of him? 

He must have sensed the onslaught of trepidation swirling around her head, because he reached over and laced his fingers with hers as they stepped up to Holt’s office door. She looked over at him, and he offered her a gentle, encouraging smile, and just like that, all of her fears were quieted. She made the right decision. Anything that happened next, they’d figure it out. 

It turned out that Holt _was_ disappointed in them. 

“I have to be honest, I’m very glad that you’ve sorted out this… _squabble,_ but I wish you would have done it sooner.” 

Jake reached over and squeezed her hand. He must’ve known exactly what was going through her head. It was too late. There was nothing they could do, and Jake was going to have to leave the nine-nine because of her. She looked up at him, and he smiled, though she could see the disappointment right through his happy front. Idly, her mind returned to that night a few months earlier, when Jake Peralta, armed with a dark purple bruise and an arsenal of jolting memories he hadn’t yet shared with her, comforted her, even when all signs pointed to him being the one in need of comfort. He was doing it again now.

But this time, they were together. This time, they would figure it out. They would be okay. Everything would be.

“Although, Peralta clearing out his desk did result in the three months worth of garbage finally making its way to the trash can, and I suppose I have the two of you to thank for that. That should cut down on the ant problem in the Peralta zone going forward, so long as you don’t immediately replace your old garbage…” He trailed off, looking pointedly at Jake. “...with new garbage.” 

Jake glanced over at her again, then looked back at Holt. “I’m sorry, sir. I don’t think I understand. Am I staying?” 

Holt stared back at them, his expression unreadable. “It’s a little bit late to halt the transfer, but I think I have a favor I can call in. I told you, Detective Peralta. You will always have a place here.” 

The smile that stretched across Jake’s face at those words made everything they’d been through worth it. He gave her a quick peck on the lips as they left the office, then he ran out to his car to grab the box with the contents of his desk in it. She sat down at her desk, which, armed with the knowledge that Jake would remain seated across from her, felt more like home than ever. Jake was staying, he was her boyfriend, and she had a thin stack of paperwork regarding their relationship to fill out tucked safely into her bag. Absentmindedly, she reached over and picked up Jake’s little bloom ball toy, stretching it larger with her hands, then collapsing it back down as she thought about how things finally felt like they were falling into place. 

That’s when it hit her. 

She picked the toy up off of her desk. All of Jake’s things were in a box in his car, but the only toy that she used to always play with was sitting on her desk. He’d left it for her. She looked up at him as he exited the elevator, a bashful smile on his face at the sight of her holding the toy. He was caught. Neither of them bothered trying to disguise their free spirited smiles. 

She replaced the toy on the seam where their desks met, making her way over to help him reorganize his things without another word about it. She could feel the warmth in the way he was looking at her even when she didn’t return his gaze, and she hoped that he could feel the same from her. As simple as it was, the toy on her desk, that tiny gesture from Jake—leaving her favorite of his desk toys for her, even when they were fighting, when she didn’t even show up for his last day, when he was leaving _because_ of her—it reaffirmed everything she knew about him. She had never been more sure that she and Jake should have taken this step together. 

If Jake Peralta was a thunderstorm, the days Amy had spent without him were like a drought. 

She had once been so afraid that the water from his rainfall would sweep away any and all of her plans, all of the tiny sandcastles that she’d been building throughout the years. What she hadn’t taken into account was that her landscape featured much more than just that one beach. While she still wasn’t positive that her sandcastles wouldn’t come tumbling down, she’d made the conscious decision that it didn’t necessarily have to be the end of the world if they did.

She’d dedicated a lot of thought to all this. If all of her plans were sandcastles, maybe they _would_ crumble. She’d be lying if she said that didn’t scare her. But those plans could fall apart whether Jake was there or not. If she focused too much of her thought and time on it, it still bothered her, but it was something that she was learning to work through. She’d rather take a chance with Jake, try to rebuild the sandcastles with him if they fall, rather than be alone with her perfectly crafted plans. If she were being honest, her plans could probably use a touch of Jake here and there. If a few castles were collateral damage, then that’s just how it was. He’s worth that risk.

Something she hadn’t previously taken into account was the bigger picture. She was so focused on her plans before that she’d failed to glance just to the left of those plans, to catch a glimpse of the rest of the landscape of her mindset. In the short time that they’d been together, she was already flourishing more than she had been in the previous months. For the moment, her sandcastles still stood tall, but now, just to the left, flowers bloomed out of control. The sunlight danced across the petals—blues and pinks and oranges—and yeah, she thought that perhaps a couple sandcastles would be a fair trade for the garden that was thriving under Jake’s influence. 

Without the constant conflict between them, work had immediately returned to being one of her favorite places. In fact, with Jake grinning at her from across the desk every time she got stuck on a case, things were even better than before. Even Boyle’s initial (incredibly overbearing) meltdown over the new status of their relationship couldn’t break her smile. 

She had been so stupid to push this off for so long. Maybe she really _could_ have everything. 

Except one thing, apparently.

At first, she thought she was being crazy. For the entirety of these two weeks, they’d been completely slammed at work. It made sense, at first. They hadn’t had a ton of time to spend together, and a lot of the time that they did have together revolved around thinking about (talking about, planning about, stressing about) this major case that the precinct had happened upon. 

The status of this case had everyone excited, but nobody was more excited than Jake. He and Charles had happened upon a homicide case that had striking similarities to the M.O. of a particularly infamous, particularly _unarrested_ serial killer. M.O. being _Modus operandi_ , Amy had corrected with a grin when Jake excitedly referred to it as the _method of orchestrating_. 

“Ugh, whatever, Ames. Catching a serial killer is my childhood dream. Let me have this!” He offered her a sly smile before he turned to his powerpoint, gravely flicking through images. Jake had been especially interested in the string of homicides when they’d happened the prior year, but Holt didn’t budge in the face of Jake’s constant pestering for more details and his avid desire to be involved. _It isn’t our jurisdiction, Detective,_ she remembered Holt gravely shutting down the conversation once and for all. 

The murders from the prior year had come to a screeching halt, leaving the FBI team investigating it with no choice but to leave the case cold. When the nine-nine had happened upon this case, Holt demanded, much to Jake’s dismay, that they refer it to the appropriate bureau team. Apparently they were involved in another, more pressing case at the moment, and with this homicide showing some inconsistencies to the ones from the year before, they weren’t ready to rule it as related and reopen their case, which meant that the squad potentially had a chance at, as Jake phrased it, _catching a freaking serial killer!_

“Jake and I got the case,” Charles interrupted Jake’s explanation of all of this.

“Yes, thank you, Charles, I was getting there.” He smiled tightly at Charles, then flicked to a new image on his powerpoint. “Charles and I got the case about a week ago.” He glared pointedly toward Holt. “After exhausting all of the appropriate avenues for _sending my dream case away_ , we have been given the all clear to resume investigations. If this case is connected to last year’s serial murders, this would be the sixth victim.” 

“The vic ticks every box for this sicko’s physical requirements. Long, dark hair, between 5’4 and 5’7, slim to athletic build. She was very career oriented, according to accounts from her loved ones, always busy.” He frowned for a moment, then flicked to an image of the crime scene. “The body was recovered in a little patch of woods off of Atlantic. While it isn’t in the exact zoning area as the other dumpsites, you couldn’t tell the places apart in pictures.”

“And Jake, are physical appearance and dumpsites the only similarities between the victims?”

“No, Charles, but thank you for that lead in.” Jake smiled at Charles, and Amy shook her head at their obviously rehearsed routine. He flicked to the next image. “Around each of the five victim’s left wrists, there was a single red ribbon. Our new victim had a similar ribbon…” He flicked to another image. “But it’s blue. FBI seems to think it’s a copycat murder. _I_ think that our serial killer knew they were gaining on him last year and completely disappeared. The guy’s smart, anticipated that if he popped back in with the exact same method of—”

“Modus operandi,” Amy repeated.

“Modus operandi,” Jake echoed without missing a beat, “they’d catch on to him immediately. He assumed that a tiny shift in his M.O. would keep the FBI off his case, and would you look at that—he was right.” He leaned forward excitedly. “You guys… We get to investigate a _serial killer.”_

Jake pumped his fist into the air one time, and Holt’s eyebrows scrunched up. 

“Not celebrating the murders,” Jake clarified, “but c’mon, it’s cool! Serial killer!”

“Or,” Rosa cut in, “we get to investigate a copycat. It _could_ just be a copycat.” 

Rosa smirked and shook her head toward Amy at Jake’s responding furrowed brow. He grumbled on his way back to his seat, allowing Holt to take the lead again. Holt directed that, due to the potential gravity of the case, Jake, Charles, Amy, and Rosa would all be heading it together. 

And since then, the case was almost the only thing she had discussed with anyone. Which, when you’re in the middle of starting a brand new relationship, can kind of put a damper on things. They spent almost every moment at work on the case, of course. She had two other open cases, which were now receiving much less attention (and, might she add, staring her down every time she sat at her desk and neglected them in favor of this new case). She and Jake kept trying to plan for a date, but then one of them would get a lead on the case and they’d be home late, or they’d get to her apartment and one of them would come up with a new theory and the next few hours were spent mapping the theory out on her whiteboard. What started as them going on a date ended with them passing out together on her couch surrounded by half-eaten Chinese takeout, notes and maps and diagrams scattered all around them, post-it notes covering all of her furniture. 

Which made sense! But the case wasn’t _all_ they were doing. They had free time, time that wasn’t occupied by the gruesome case. And while, of course, this particular case may have carried more than other cases and rightfully was taking up more of their time than a regular case would, these sorts of things were _normal_ for them. This is the life that they’d chosen. The details of the case were horrendous, but it wasn’t like they hadn’t seen worse before. It wasn’t like they hadn’t been stuck on cases before, and while she wanted to find the murderer and bring them to justice just as badly as Jake did, there were also other things on her mind. 

Other things, she’d shamefully admit to nobody but herself, like the fact that she and Jake still hadn’t consummated their relationship. 

They didn’t have sex that first night, because she was so tired and Jake, rightly, assured her that they would have time to do more than just sleep in the future. He pulled her into his arms and she really never stood a chance. She’s pretty sure she was asleep in minutes. Then the following morning, they had to rush off to discuss Jake’s transfer with Holt, so they didn’t have sex then, either. Which was fine! It’s not like she was in a rush. 

Then after that, that’s when the case was introduced. For a minute, she convinced herself that it was all in her head, that Jake wasn’t being weird and that their lack of… _interaction_ , for lack of a better word, was to be fully blamed on them just being so busy with work. They really did fall asleep surrounded by post-its, with theories and possibilities plaguing her dreams that night, and both of them were entirely involved in this case, aware that a certain Vulture from Major Crimes would be sniffing around at the first scent of a solid lead. They needed to act quickly, and so even in their free time, sex really wasn’t in the forefront of her mind. 

But… it’s not like they spent _all_ their time on the case. There were a handful of times when they’d started making out just for Jake to abruptly pull away, but even when some little alarm in the back of her mind went off, she just blamed it on the case. He had a lot on his mind, he was busy, he was exhausted. It made sense. She could make it make sense.

But then that first weekend came. The night before, they’d stayed out with the squad kind of late, but neither of them were really in the mood to drink. So when they made it back to his apartment at 1am, sober, minds heavy with the ideas they were shooting back and forth with Charles and Rosa, they just went straight to bed. 

On Saturday, they hadn’t talked about the case a single time. When they’d gotten up in the morning, he told her that he thought they just needed a day to relax and keep their minds off of work. She totally agreed, and she thought they were on the same page right up until about the middle of the movie they were watching. 

She’d been leaning against his chest throughout the movie. He had an arm around her middle, his fingers lazily rubbing across her side. He’d absentmindedly start playing with her hair every now and then. That’s what he was doing when she turned and looked at him, the movie completely forgotten as they simultaneously closed the distance between their lips. His hand was already in her hair, so it was easy enough for it to tangle through her waves. What started as a gentle kiss quickly became more demanding, and they found themselves pushing and pulling against each other, tugging at buttons, sighing and humming against each other’s lips. But when she shifted in his lap to grind closer to him, his hands tightened on her waist in a different way than she was used to. Instead of pulling her closer, he was stopping her. 

It was as if she had burned him. He shifted to get out from underneath her, and he almost seemed panicky. He started rambling about how he needed to run to the bodega to get almond milk, their movie still playing in the background, and he asked if she needed anything or if she wanted to come with him, and when she said no, he pressed a quick kiss to her cheek, avoided her eye contact, and walked out the door with half his buttons still undone. Like, he literally jumped up and _left_.

So yeah, Jake was definitely being weird. Which, maybe it _did_ just have something to do with work. God knows that her cases were consuming her life. But the more she thought about it, the more it all started bothering her. She knew this job and she liked to think that she knew Jake pretty well, too. She couldn’t count on both hands the number of times that he’d called her to come over at the height of their arrangement, using sex with her as a bandaid for every unsolved case, each frustrating moment when nothing made sense, as a way to cope with the impending deadlines and non-existent evidence in the midst of a slump. She’d done the same thing. Jake Peralta, whom she’d been with more times than she could possibly recount, now her _boyfriend_ , seemingly didn’t want to have sex with her. 

But for the time being, she figured she’d just let it go. He probably just had something on his mind. She understood. She had a lot on her mind, too. And besides, if Jake wasn’t fucking her, at least all of her cases were. 

She hadn’t really put too much thought into it until the night that they actually (finally) had the time for a real date. Jake had gone out of his way to plan this nice date. He’d gotten reservations at a restaurant that Charles recommended, he’d instructed her to dress up, she even caught him looking at new ties online as Rosa drove them to a possible linked location turned dead-end in their case. 

He’d been obviously flirting with her the whole way back to the precinct, giving her pointed glances that felt like the ones they always used to. As they were walking back to the building, she figured she’d take her chance on a new idea. It had been a few more days and she’d be lying if she said the lack of sex wasn’t increasingly on her mind. Had they been in their arrangement days right now, she’d have been exchanging looks with him to go fuck away yet another disappointment in the case, but as it were, she’s pretty sure sleeping with Jake wasn’t in the forecast for her. It wasn’t even that she needed to sleep with him so much as it was that she needed to know why he seemed to be so explicitly _against it,_ all of a sudden. If they were waiting, that was fine, but they hadn’t talked about it, she hadn’t exactly pegged Jake as the _waiting for the third date_ type, and, ya’know, she’d slept with him on and off for the better part of the last year, so… why would they be waiting?

And if they weren’t waiting, that just meant that he was avoiding. And why would he be avoiding? Unless she’d done something wrong. Had she? Then her work thoughts revolved around the case and her home thoughts revolved around spinning out on possible reasons that Jake had been avoiding her, and she was tired of overthinking everything. She couldn’t make the case magically be solved, but she had a knack for getting Jake Peralta’s attention. She’d start there. 

She didn’t want to just ask him about it. In the event that she was just being crazy, which she kind of still thought was a possibility, she’d feel stupid to have brought it up. Or what if she was being insensitive? Perhaps this case was different for him than the others due to the stake of it possibly bringing his childhood dreams (however alarming they may be) to realization. Ultimately, it all boiled down to _sex doesn’t matter, Amy._ What, she’s going to bring up sex in their two week relationship like that was the most important thing going on in their lives right now, like they weren’t in the middle of the highest scale case that either of them had been involved with this year? Not likely. 

Plus… She wasn’t even _positive_ that he was being weird. She’d have to test her theory before she committed. Jake outright being weird while they were making out _one time_ didn’t mean he was avoiding having sex with her. No, if she was going to prove a hypothesis, she was going to have to replicate the experiment a few times like a _good_ scientist. She needed a pattern of evidence. 

“Is it cool if I shower at your place?” She asked the question nonchalantly, but she could tell there was a bit of an edge in her voice. “I’ve got my dress for the date with me, but I figured since I’m coming over anyway… Your shower’s nicer than the one in the locker room.”

He hummed in agreement, his head seemingly somewhere else. “No problem.”

They helped Rosa complete the paperwork on yet another non-starter of a lead, and they started on their way back to Jake’s. Major Crimes was looming on the edge of the case when they started, but since they’d begun their investigation, there had been nothing but static on the killer’s end. Maybe they stopped completely, perhaps they realized that the cops were on to them again and they’re just hanging low, but either way, they’d investigated every centimeter of what they’d been presented with so far, and with no new moves on the perpetrator side of things, their case wasn’t going anywhere. On the bright side, Major Crimes had seemed to have lost interest. 

She followed closely behind his car, and she wasn’t sure that she ever really made a plan. She couldn’t remember thinking about it at all, if she were being honest, but when they got to his apartment, she just saw something in his eyes. She reflected on their flirty banter from earlier in the day, remembered the looks he’d been giving her, and her mind was made up. If she was going to test her theory, what better time than now? She pressed her lips to his as they walked through the door, and after a few minutes she was taking his hand lightly, pulling him with her toward the bathroom. 

“Mmm, Ames,” he hummed into the kiss. He pulled his hand out of hers, placing both hands on her hips to stop her in place. She leaned against his chest, eyes wide and innocent. 

“Yes?” 

“Reservations, babe.” 

She pulled on his hand a little. “I know. We have time.” 

His lips turned up slightly, and he laughed as he shook his head. “I don’t think we do.” 

“We’ll be quick.” She stretched up to kiss him again, and she thought for sure that when he pulled her closer, she was getting her way. 

He pulled away again, his lips pressing quickly to her jaw. “We have to make it to the restaurant within ten minutes of the reservations, otherwise they give up our table, Ames.” 

He smiled at her, then pulled away, and she barely caught the way his eyebrows pulled together as he turned away from her to head to the other room. They had more than enough time to make it to the restaurant before their reservations. Since when was _Jake Peralta_ concerned about being early? 

He was being so _weird_. What was going on with him?

—

He was being so _weird_. God, he could tell she was noticing. It’s not like he was being exactly discrete. He’d _like_ to be more discrete, but he was practically jumping out of his skin every time she touched him. He’d relax into her just long enough for his thoughts to catch up with their actions, and then he was on the run again—and he didn’t even know _why_. 

They’d been dating for two weeks and he could name at least thirty times when he’d thought about having sex with her—just off the top of his head. At her apartment, with her sprawled out on her bed in a pair of shorts and a tank top, her glasses already on as she did her nightly crossword, and his eyes just traced up the back of her legs as he made his way to join her in bed. That night where they’d spent hours on her couch trying to figure out where the central point of all the dumpsites were, when she’d laughed at a stupid theory he’d thrown out, then tucked her hair behind both ears. She rolled over and got sticky notes stuck all over her back, and as he helped her to peel them off, he thought back to moments when he’d stood behind her like that and unbuttoned her shirt, whispering all his plans for the night into her ear as he did. At work just… _all the time_. Watching her at work was something else, her determination and focus and just _fuck_ , she’s so smart and strong and dedicated and turned on didn’t even begin to describe what she did to him in that setting. 

If they had just slept together that first night, he’s certain that he wouldn’t have all these confusing feelings swirling around his head. He wanted her that night the same way he’s wanted her every day since, but something about that night with her changed everything in his mind. He’d never spent a night with her quite like that before. 

Actually, he’d never experienced a night with _anyone_ quite like that. They’d undressed each other, a weird mix of desperation and deliberation between them. Each placement of fingers was intentional, but there was that familiar hunger between them that he’d been craving. The feeling bloomed in his chest more with each burning kiss that she pressed to his skin, and then her tongue was on his as he carried her to his bed, and he held her and kissed her languidly and when she looked at him and said those words— _I like you so much_ —his heart just melted. 

He hadn’t shut off his desire for her. Even now, it was stronger than ever, but when she snuggled against him that night, he’d never felt so warm. He’d never taken a woman home and stopped in the middle of foreplay in favor of cuddling up in blankets and just breathing each other in. And when he woke up the next morning, his heart was so full. She was still in his arms, relaxed, complete with a sleepy smile that just made everything feel right in his world. His eyes were tracing over the soft waves in her hair when it hit him: that was the first time he’d spent the night with her without sleeping with her. 

It was such a new feeling, but it had already made a home in his heart—one of his favorite feelings. The warmth, the adoration, the tenderness he felt for her, all of these emotions just filled him up to the brim until they were spilling over, his arms tightening to bring her closer because he couldn’t break his smile long enough to convey his feelings through kisses to the back of her shoulder. 

And when she shifted against him with a little more intention, that’s when it all really hit him. He felt so known the night before. She looked into his eyes, and he felt so _seen_. For the first time, there were no pretenses between them. They were just Jake and Amy, no carefully built facades, no hidden feelings or harbored resentments, just _them_. And what if… what if the only reason he’d felt that way… What if the only thing that was different between them… was the fact that they just spent the night together sans the sex that a sleepover between them would typically include?

Now, if he’d dedicated a little more time to thinking about it, he would have realized that not sleeping together wasn’t the only thing that had changed between them. They’d finally talked about things, had finally gotten all of those previously mentioned harbored feelings out of the depths that they’d been living in. They’d finally apologized to each other. They’d started fresh, in a sense, carrying their history close to them, but relishing in a new starting point, a starting point where they faced things _together_. 

As it was, Jake hadn’t really had the time to dedicate more thought to it in that moment, because instead of responding in kind, he was springing up from the bed to distance himself from her. He was armed with a reasonable explanation and a hope that the feeling would dissipate once he’d gotten his thoughts together. Instead, more thought only had him doubling down on the idea, sex with Amy becoming something that was simultaneously what he desired most and, contradictorily, the thing he was putting the most energy into avoiding. Sex had the power to complicate things between them again, and he liked her way too much to just openly welcome those complications so soon. Besides, they were so busy with work right now, anyway. Maybe when they closed the case… 

He was still thinking about all that when she called his name from the bathroom. He had an idea about what he was going to find when he opened the door, what with the interaction that he’d just pulled away from, and all. He was pretty sure that it had been abundantly clear that he wanted her just as badly as she wanted him, and if he knew Amy like he thought he did, this was the moment where she’d show all her cards in a second attempt to get what she wanted. He’d been through countless scenarios like this with her when she’d first become his partner and they were constantly butting heads, and he’d seen the same thing happen in the bedroom a few times, too. 

“What’s up, Ames?” 

“I forgot to grab a towel out of the closet,” she informed him, and he basically breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t know what he was talking about. She just needed a towel. 

He turned and ran back over to the closet, grabbing one of the towels she’d brought to his apartment (because apparently adults own more than one towel?) and bringing it back to the bathroom. He pushed the door open the rest of the way. 

Steam billowed through the room, and he was already mesmerized. The room smelled like his shampoo, and he thought for a moment that he should probably invest in a bottle of that stuff she uses. He loves it, the citrus-y scent of whatever it is has tugged his attention away from other matters countless times. He realized, though, that there’s something he found inherently attractive about her— _his girlfriend_ —using his body wash, and that thought was weaving its way through his mind even before he heard the water trickle to a stop. 

“Towel’s here, I’m gonna leave it on the—” 

The words died in his throat as she tugged open the shower curtain. A tiny part of his mind yelled _aha! You_ do _know her!_ That tiny part of his mind quieted almost immediately as he took her in. His eyes were drawn to her, like he had anywhere else to look. Her skin was flushed, a gentle pink spreading across her from the warmth of the water. His eyes chased droplets of water across her curves, and by the time he realized that he’d been standing there, staring stupidly at her, she was already biting her lip. He swallowed thickly. 

“Are you gonna bring it to me?” She asked. It was an offhanded question. He sensed a bit of an edge in her voice, like she was daring him. He locked eyes with her as he stepped forward, extending the towel toward her. 

She took the towel out of his hand, which was still outstretched when she pressed the fabric against his chest. She took his hand in hers, quietly focusing on him as she guided his hand to her shoulder. He clenched his jaw, his hand gripping her firmly, and for a moment, they just stared at one another. 

It was like someone flipped a switch. He crashed into her, pulling her closer, his fingers clinging to her, pulling her against him. He was just wearing a t-shirt, and her body pressing against him had it damp within seconds, so she was pulling it over his head and then he was in the shower with her, no attention granted to his wet socks because she’s hot and she’s wet and she _wanted him_ , and fuck, he wanted her, too. 

He pressed her against the wall, her lips and tongue and teeth distracting him against his neck. He dedicated a moment to kissing and licking and rubbing away the traces of goosebumps that lingered across her damp skin, marvelling at every soft sound she made. Then he hitched her leg up, his fingers finding her ready for him, and what started as teasing strokes with his thumb quickly moved to something more substantial, one of his fingers crooking into her the way he remembered that she likes. He got lost in her, her hands roaming his body, clinging to him as he pumped his fingers into her, each sound she made spurring him on further. He was torn back to reality when those soft, breathy sounds broke in favor of a, _“Jake,”_ her hands tugging at the button on his jeans. His hands stilled. 

He lowered her leg back to the floor carefully, extricating his hand from between her legs. She was confused, he could tell. Hell, _he_ was confused, but he couldn’t stop the motions he was already going through. He kissed her gently, his chest heaving as he stepped back in what felt like a daze. He reached for the towel, discarded on the floor in the rush of everything, and tried to ignore the way his erection was suffocating beneath his zipper as he passed her the towel. 

“The, uh, reservations,” he informed her with a gentle nod, his eyes refusing to stay focused on her for too long. He kissed her cheek, and a small smile passed over her lips even as she maintained her expression of confusion with what he thought was a little frustration tugging at her eyebrows. 

He muttered expletives at himself as he closed the bathroom door because _what the fuck is wrong with you, Peralta?_ He tugged off his wet socks with shaky hands as he ran for his bedroom, making his way to the closet to find a new shirt. Then, for good measure, he shut the closet door with himself on the inside, leaning against the door and sliding down until he was just sitting there in the dark like the dumbass that he was. 

What a fucking idiot. 

He was fine. He was totally fine. He just needed a minute. He squeezed his eyes shut, banging his head softly against the door and groaning to himself. What was wrong with him? Why was he being like this? How many times was she going to initiate something with him before he could just get over whatever his obstacle was and just do the thing that his girlfriend was asking of him, do the thing that he’d done with her _so many times?_ Why was he having so much trouble with the idea of having sex with her now? 

It’s not like he didn’t want to. _He wanted to_. He just… _couldn’t_. Physically, he had no problem. It was all in his head, but he couldn’t even really identify exactly what the problem was. If he knew what the problem was, he could just get it over with and fix it, but as it was, he just kept fucking things up. He knew it was stupid, that having sex with her wouldn’t automatically revert them to their old ways, but he couldn’t tear the thought out of his head. How was he supposed to get past that? It wasn’t like he could push through it and just do it anyways because the thought had him struggling to breathe and trembling and, apparently, locking himself in his closet to distance himself from her. He could only assume that ripping his hands away from her like he just did wouldn’t have made her feel great about herself either, and then he was kicking himself for that because what if she was feeling bad about herself because of him? 

By the time he’d finally pulled himself together and gotten dressed, she was leaning against the kitchen counter waiting for him. For a moment, he thought she was going to bring it up. She didn’t say anything when he first walked in front of her, and then he wondered if perhaps _he_ should bring it up. What would he even say? But then she was biting her lip and shaking her head, and he could see that her expression was disappointed, or maybe guarded, but he didn’t know how to make the expression go away.

“You ready to go?” She asked, not meeting his eyes. “Reservations, right?” 

His voice was weak when he replied. “Yeah, reservations.” 

So they went to dinner, and it was awkward and tense the entire time, and he hated himself every second that they were there, because he’d always thought that he’d never have to feel something like that with her again, and yet here they were. Every smile she offered him was guarded or weak, and it was all his fault. He fucked things up, and he didn’t even know what was wrong with him to be able to fix it. And what, he was supposed to bring it up to talk to her about it? He couldn’t even figure it out himself, and what if dragging her into it just made her feel worse? It’s not like he had concrete answers to offer her when she inevitably had questions. He’d have to just figure it out on his own time and then it would be solved without pushing more of it on her. 

They talked absentmindedly, small talk about work and their families, but nothing too serious. He spent so much of the date watching her, but her eyes rarely made their way to his face. When they got back to his apartment, she stopped at the bottom of his steps, and he knew that she wasn’t going to come back inside with him. 

She stretched up to kiss him on the cheek, her voice soft as she addressed him. “I’m just pretty tired. I’m gonna, uhm…” She trailed off, and he nodded toward the ground. He understood. “I have the day off tomorrow, but if you want to come over when you get off and, I don’t know… talk?” 

His heart sank. He nodded again. “Yeah. I’ll, uh, call you when I’m on my way.” 

She smiled at him, the same genuine smile she always offered. She wound her arms loosely around his neck, pressing her lips against his. He leaned his forehead against hers, equal parts longing for her to stay and simultaneously needing the space to work through whatever problem was plaguing his mind. 

“Goodnight, Jake.” She didn’t move out of her place in his arms. 

“Goodnight, Ames.” He nuzzled his nose against hers. 

They stayed that way for a moment, as if neither of them wanted to be the one to pull away. Eventually Amy nodded, then they shared one more quick kiss before she slipped out of his arms and made her way to her car. 

“Let me know when you get home,” he said gently, his lips pressed together into a tight smile. 

She nodded an agreement, a similar smile on her lips, and waved at him as she pulled away. He waited until her car was out of sight before he walked into his empty apartment. They weren’t spending every night together, so being alone in his apartment wasn’t really out of the ordinary. Usually he finished up his nightly ritual, then flopped into bed with a smile on his face, ready to begin the game of who would fall asleep first in the middle of their texts. 

Tonight was different. Tonight, his apartment felt big and empty and lonely. Tonight, he wished she were there. Tonight, there were no texts for him to chuckle to himself at. Tonight, he wished he’d done things differently. 

So he set to work on figuring out what the fuck his problem was. 

After a solid two hours of thinking about it and a handful of typed and deleted texts to her, he came up with a theory that had some merit. Look, he was a great detective, but it’s hard to separate yourself from the data when the case is about you. 

Things were great between them. The problem only came up when sex was introduced. They’d made out a bunch and that, on its own, had never caused these feelings inside of him. It was when she tugged on the button on his jeans, or situated herself on top of him, or, earlier that day when things had gotten further than any of the other times, when she said his name just the right way. 

The thing was that normally, those situations would leave his head empty, nothing but desire for her echoing through his mind. Now it seemed that when those things happened, his head was immediately flooded with thoughts about now versus then. Because things were good now, and things were less good then. 

He didn’t like this lead, but it was admittedly the best direction he’d taken yet. He was afraid. Their entire relationship had revolved around nothing but sex for so long. They finally had more than sex, finally had feelings that they openly admitted to each other, they had a real date at a restaurant, they had soft kisses and sly smiles that he didn’t have to steal glances at. What if reintroducing sex somehow took that away from him? 

He was immediately catapulted back into the night when he’d first told her he had feelings for her. And god, he knew things were different now. So much had happened between them since that night. _Yeah,_ his brain supplied, _like the night you stormed away from her parents house, or the day she read the note and left anyways_. But _no._ Things were different now than they were those times. They’d talked. She shared her feelings with him. That was different. Things were different. 

_You thought things were different that night, too,_ his brain reminded acidicly. And to be fair, his brain was right. He felt safe with her, and then she’d pulled the rug out from under him in one swift movement and that set off a chain of events that, even in the best moments, had been really hard for him. But things _were_ different, this time. He knew things were different this time. He was torturing himself with what ifs, with creeping back into the hardest parts of their rocky past, but they weren’t in the past anymore.

Of course he wanted her. He wanted her in every possible way. But the thought of doing anything that could threaten their relationship, that could even _maybe_ send him hurtling toward the way he felt that night, gave him a feeling in the pit of his stomach that he couldn’t quite describe. He’d messed up relationships before. He wasn’t going to mess up with Amy. 

Except, he realized, that he already was. Being weird about sleeping with her and offering no sort of explanation was already messing things up. It was the reason they’d had a tense, uncomfortable night on their first real date, and it was the reason that he was currently alone in his apartment instead of wrapped up in her. 

So it was decided. He was going to talk to her about it. He didn’t really see any other way for this to go. Maybe at first it would be uncomfortable, but in the long run, it would be the right move for them.

As he promised, he called her on his way to her apartment after work the next day. She sounded normal, and just the sound of her voice helped to quell some of the anxiety he was feeling about this impending conversation. 

But when he stepped in her door… His lips parted as he took in the scene in front of him. It was going to be a lot harder to have that conversation than he thought. 

She was standing in the kitchen, a warm smile on her face as he stepped through the door. Normally that would be comforting. Right now, however, that smile was accompanied by her wearing what he was fairly certain was _only_ her bed sheet, wrapped loosely around herself in a way that exposed her entire back. It turned out that he wasn’t the only one who had a plan regarding his problem. Amy, to her credit, had a _very_ intriguing plan.

His words got stuck in his throat, a soft exhale coming before he found his voice. “Hey.” 

“Hi,” she replied, her voice taking on that soft, breathy quality that he knew so well. 

He swallowed hard, turning to slip his shoes off at the door. He was really only doing it to buy himself another few seconds to think his next move through, which ultimately proved to be no help at all. He knew if he closed the distance between them and kissed her like he wanted to, like _she_ wanted him to, things would end the same way they did the day before. Things would get too heated too quickly and he’d lose control of his ability to push his pessimistic thoughts away, and he’d pull back. And it’s not like his nerves would allow him to talk to her after that happened. 

He was taking too long to turn back around and face her. If nothing else, he was at least proud that the _coolcoolcoolcoolcool_ playing on a loop in his brain didn’t force its way out of his lips. 

His apprehension was palpable, and he tried his hardest to quell his nerves, but try as he might, the disquieting edge lingered. As much as he didn’t want to, they needed to talk about this. And if that sheet fell to the floor, if she kissed him and guided his hands onto her body, he wouldn’t be able to talk about it. He’d fall into a rhythm with her right up until his thoughts caught up with his actions, then he’d retreat again, and everything would be worse for it. She deserved better than that. 

“Ames,” he began softly as he turned back around to face her. “I think…” 

He’d begun making his way over to her, but he stopped short, his eyes tracing up her legs as she started taking slow steps toward him. When he didn’t continue speaking, she shrugged her shoulders. 

“You don’t have to think, Jake.” 

He fought off a shiver, his breath all but evading him. He swallowed thickly, his head bobbing slightly in an obedient nod. He had a plan. He had a plan and he _really_ needed to follow his plan. If he didn’t follow his plan, things could very well go up in flames. 

But with her eyes on him like that… 

“Come here.” She arched an eyebrow at him, her eyelashes fluttering in that way they always did when she was trying to be extra alluring. Someone should probably tell her that she doesn’t need to try any harder than normal. 

Against his better judgement, he crossed the room. There was a strange war going on inside of him. Some part of his brain was tugging at him, muttering incessantly about _safety_ , but he couldn’t figure out which direction safety lived. In this scenario, he was fairly certain that safety existed in front of her door, an expanse of floorboards separating the two of them. But Amy _was_ safety. Safety was her hands in his hair and her lips on his skin and her voice in his ear. So he found himself standing in front of her, his breath a garbled mix of a tense gasp and a relieved sigh when her hand gravitated toward his jaw. 

“Uh, how was,” his voice sounded gravelly, so he paused to clear his throat. “How was your day off?” 

She hummed, a sort of sweet, purring sound. Her tongue flicked out across her bottom lip, and he struggled with the urge to dip his head down and meet her there. He had a vague awareness that she was watching his eyes still lingering on her lips. “Better now that you’re here.”

His eyes flickered back up to meet hers. He swore that he could physically feel the tension between them. Back in the academy, Rosa dated this crazy guy and being in the same room as the two of them was practically intolerable. The tension crept up on everyone around until the room was reduced to uncomfortably flickered glances, Rosa and Adrian all but unaware of the people around them. He was willing to bet that he and Amy rivaled that tension in this moment.

The hand that was holding onto the sheet pulled closer to him. Her fingers curled around his shirt, bringing him that much closer to her body. The movement shifted the sheet away from her enough that he was awarded a few extra centimeters of visible skin. He tried not to notice, but he lost the battle as soon as it started, his eyebrows pulling together. It had been such a long time and he wanted her _so bad_.

He tipped her face up slowly to meet his. There was no urgency in this kiss. Her fingers curled around his shirt just a little tighter, his free hand working to anchor itself in her hair. He was just beginning to lose himself in the kiss when he felt her fingers loosen around his shirt. He rushed to grip onto the sheet, keeping it closed around her body as her fingers slipped away from the fabric. He pulled out of the kiss, breathless and a bit frantic. 

She sighed heavily. “I _knew it.”_

“You?” Jake blinked furiously, confusion settling over him. “You knew what?” 

She took a half step back. “Jake, I don’t understand why you’re being so weird.” She shrugged her shoulders, pulling his hands away so that she could replace her tight grasp on the sheet. He swallowed, his eyes drawn to her collarbone as she shifted under his gaze. “It’s like ever since we started dating you just… don’t want me?” 

He frowned, lifting his hand to hold her face, hoping his expression could show her even a fraction of the way he felt about her. “Of _course_ I want you, Ames.”

“Okay, then—” She moved to let go of the sheet, and he quickly replaced his hands in holding it on her body, a small sound of protest escaping his lips. She snatched it back away from him, taking a step back. “See, exactly.” 

His frown deepened. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to have sex with her. Obviously. She was his girlfriend now, and the desire was there—arguably now more than ever, considering he’d been holding back for so long. The last time they’d been together was when they blindly stumbled through his apartment in the dark, when her fingers brushed over the bruises on his ribs, when he’d held her and kissed away her tears. That was almost two months ago now. They’d been dating for two weeks, and he’d been awkwardly shrugging off her advances each time they came up. 

She shook her head, sighing softly. “Look, this was stupid. I’m just gonna go get dressed—”

“Don’t.” 

His hand clasped over hers, still holding the sheet up in front of her. Her eyes glanced down to their hands, then she looked up at his face expectantly. 

“I want you,” his voice was soft, but he couldn’t meet her gaze. “Of course I want you. You’re so…” He trailed off, his free hand finding her hip and squeezing gently. She let him pull her hips against his, and she kept her eyes on his face even as he looked away. “I’m just…” He was searching for the right words. He’d never been good at talking about things like this. But he remembered all the times that they hadn’t talked things through, and the way that it had always ended badly between them. He needed to just get it over with. But he couldn’t look at her as he said it. 

“I’m scared, I guess.” He took a deep breath, and his words started coming out in a rush. “I just don’t wanna mess things up between us. I like you so much, and things between us were so messy when we were having sex before…” He shook his head and attempted to make eye contact with her, but then he looked back down at the floor. “God, it sounds so stupid when I say it out loud.” He raised his eyebrows, still blinking down at the floor. “I _want you._ Trust me, I do. I just don’t want to ruin things with you, Ames. You’re too… This is too important.” 

“Hey.” He closed his eyes when her hand moved to his jaw. She tipped his face toward her, and he opened his eyes, one of his hands moving to cover hers. “That isn’t stupid, Jake.” 

He smiled, then turned his head to press a kiss against her palm. His lips lingered against her skin. “Thank you.” 

She smiled back. “You have nothing to thank me for. I’ll go get dressed, and we can just go…” She pulled away slightly, but she trailed off when his hands returned to her sides, gently tracing against the thin layer of fabric and bringing her closer. 

“I want you,” he repeated. 

“You don’t have to,” she nodded to him, her fingers on her free hand gently brushing against his cheek. “We don’t have to rush anything, Jake. We can talk about it, or just wait until it feels right, or…” 

His hands tightened on her waist, and his jaw tightened with them. “Please.” 

She looked into his eyes, studying him closely for what he assumed was any bit of uncertainty. She twisted the top of the sheet, tucking it in so that she could let it go without dropping it. She walked her fingers up his chest, her other hand sliding back behind his neck. “Do you trust me?” 

He pulled her close, his eyes set on hers. She flattened her palm against his chest, her lips pulling into a smirk as his heart thumped beneath her hand. She stretched up on her toes to be closer to him, and he leaned his forehead against hers as he nodded slowly. 

She nodded back, her lips almost touching his as she bit down on her bottom lip. “Maybe we just take it slow? That sound good?” Her whispers fell against his lips, and he clenched his jaw, nodding an agreement to her question. He was fairly certain he’d agree with anything she said in that moment. 

Then her hand was sliding up to his jaw and he was pulling her tighter to him as she kissed him. It was slow, just like she’d promised. She kept him in place, one hand on his neck and the other on his cheek, kissing him leisurely. Every bit of affection he’d ever craved from her seeped into this kiss, her lips soft and warm on his. 

He was the reason they were supposed to be moving slow, and he was painfully aware of that even as he pushed to deepen the kiss. His tongue ran across her bottom lip, and she invited him in. He breathed a quiet sound into the kiss when she backed him up against the corner of the counter and the wall. Her hips shifted gently against his, and within minutes, he had handfuls of the sheet bunched up around her thighs, baring more of her legs each second.

She laughed softly, pushing him further against the wall as she began to unbutton his shirt. There was a soft _thud_ as his head hit the wall, lolling to the side and giving her access to his neck, which she gratefully took advantage of. His fingers tugged through her hair, and he let out a rough moan when she found that spot at the base of his throat and worked on marking him with her teeth. 

She slipped her hands underneath his flannel when she finished unbuttoning it, expecting to find another layer underneath, but she was pleasantly surprised when her fingertips met his warm skin instead. She hummed happily, and he pulled her face back to his for another rough kiss. 

He watched her every move when she pulled back out of the kiss. She traced the back of her fingernails across his chest, giggling softly when it sent a shiver down his spine like she knew it would. He slid his thumbs up the front of her ribs, skimming under her breasts. He slowly twisted the sheet in his hand, his eyes glued to her as he pulled it down, letting it fall to the floor. 

It didn’t matter how many times he’d seen her, he’d never get over how beautiful she was. His eyes traced over her slowly, his hands shifting from her hips up to her breasts, massaging there gently. She hummed, pressing her palm back against his chest, pointedly dragging it down until she was pulling at the button on his jeans. “This okay?” 

“Yes,” he managed out against her lips. His breath caught in his throat as she tugged his button open. She pulled a low moan from somewhere deep in his chest as she slipped her hand into his boxers, grasping him tight. She was standing in front of him completely naked, leaning close to him as she worked him. His hands stilled on her sides, lost in the sensations. Telling her about his insecurity seemed to have given him a bit of an upper hand on it. The anxious feeling still tugged at him, but he had a much easier time shoving it away. He trusted her. Their relationship was different now than it was back then. 

His eyes were clamped shut when she moved back to his neck. “I’ve been thinking about this so much,” she whimpered, just barely above a whisper against his skin. His lips slipped apart to let a sigh escape, his head tipping back against the wall. His hips rolled forward with each motion she made, and she laughed quietly. 

He groaned, his hands tangling in her hair to pull her lips back to his. He’d been thinking about it a lot too, and now that it was happening, he was having trouble holding himself together. 

“Mmm-mmmm,” she hummed against his lips, a gentle scold for pulling her into the kiss. “Just relax, babe.” She pressed her index finger on her free hand against his lips, and he held her eye contact through narrowed eyes, nodding helplessly. Her other hand increased its speed, prompting a weak moan to slip out of his lips. “Enjoy yourself.” 

And then she was sinking down his body, pressing warm kisses across his chest, soothing every bite mark with her tongue, sliding her fingers into his waistband and tugging his jeans down his thighs, and he gripped onto the edge of the counter just for something to do with his hands. He shook his head at her—Amy Santiago, his girlfriend (it seemed like no matter how many times he thought about it, he never got tired of the new title)—as she smirked up at him. She’d always been so good at teasing him. 

The next thing she did wasn’t from her usual playbook. She pulled on the ends of his shirt, still on his shoulders, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and gestured for him to come down to the floor with her. He slipped down the wall slowly, holding her eye contact as he made it back down to her level. His hands were on her as soon as he hit the floor. 

She shifted to come closer, but he was already pulling her in. She settled over his lap, humming against his lips as he helped her to grind against him. His lips trembled around every breath when her tongue made its way back to his neck. This was the closest they’d been in months, and the feeling of her skin on his— _so close_ to where he’d been craving her, but just far enough to keep him wanting more—was enough to get him gasping for her. 

She laughed softly. “What happened to moving slow?” 

His eyes fluttered open to meet hers, that familiar, dazed look that she’d missed so much written all across his face. He used his firm grip on her hips to shift her against him, groaning softly and allowing his eyes to squeeze shut again. “Want you.” 

She tried to ignore the desire she found in his eyes as they snapped open to watch her pull away from him. His hands chased her. “Mmmm, where are you going?” She raised an eyebrow at him, and he whined. “So mean.” 

She gasped. “I’m mean?” 

_“So_ mean,” he corrected, shifting to move closer to her again. He held her close, one of his hands rubbing teasingly at the inside of her thigh. He kissed his way up her neck, stopping to nip at a particular spot and admiring the sound she made in response. His hand crept up past her thigh as he whispered in her ear. “Let me fuck you, Ames.” 

She let out a breathy moan as he touched her, arching a little closer. He breathed against her ear. “Fuck, I want you so bad.” 

Her breath hitched, but she pulled away again. He whined disapprovingly, and she bit her lip. “Sit down. Relax, babe. We’re taking it slow.” 

He bit the smile away from his lips as he did what he was told, keeping his questioning eyes set on her. She stayed in place, watching him, so he gingerly moved his hands to his lap, gauging her reaction and letting his mind stray to their first morning after, in the shower at her apartment, _showing her what he liked_. 

She scoffed. “God, you’re so impatient.” 

“Have you seen yourself lately?” He shot back, his hand lazily working in his lap. “And you’re using that voice. Can you blame me?” 

He raised his eyebrows as she settled between his thighs, propping herself up on her elbows just out of reach of him. His hand slowed, but didn’t entirely stop. 

“Oh, no, don’t stop on account of me,” she insisted, smirking up at him. “Please. I wouldn’t want to get in the way.” 

“Ames…” His voice strained slightly, that of a frustrated hostage pleading with their captor. 

“I’ll just sit here and do nothing.” She bit the smile away from her lips in favor of a more serious expression. 

“Title of your s—” Her hand replaced his, her grip much more firm and steady than his had been. His head tipped back against the wall again, his words interrupted by the groan that rippled out of his throat upon her unexpected touch, followed by a breathier, “oh _fuck.”_

He heard her little proud laugh, but he didn’t have it in him to care about the look of self-satisfaction that had undoubtedly made a short-lived home on her face before the determination took over. He didn’t even get the opportunity to see either of those expressions because by the time he’d reacquainted himself with her touch (and the way that it somehow sent slow, rippling waves through every nerve in his body), she was already taking him into her mouth. 

He had been so stupid. He was putty in her hands, arguably more vulnerable now than probably ever before, and yet there wasn’t a single flicker of doubt in his mind. Every feeling of safety and understanding that he’d been clinging to remained just as strong as that night they’d fallen asleep together. 

He opened his eyes to watch her, his hands gravitating toward her hair as it slipped over her shoulder and tickled his thigh. The gesture was half rooted in concern—he was certain that her hair in her face was bothering her—but the other half was rooted in his reflex to thrust closer, to regulate her teasing pace into something more substantial. He didn’t—he simply pushed her hair out of her face, locking his fingers in and taking extra care to remain still as his eyes squeezed shut tighter. She swirled her tongue across him, and he whispered curses under his breath. 

He didn’t even notice when his hips eventually started moving. It was just a subtle movement at first, hips rocking forward of their own volition to chase the sensation of her tongue slipping past him. When he caught himself, he immediately stilled. She hummed around him at the change, and when he didn’t have her desired response, she replaced her mouth with her hand. Her lips were swollen and glistening, that pretty red shade from their work on him that no lipstick could ever match, and all he could really focus on was her tongue darting across her bottom lip as she stared at him expectantly. 

“Keep going,” she finally said. He didn’t have the slightest clue what she was talking about, and she must have seen that in his expression. “If it feels good, keep going. I promise I’ll stop you if I need to.” 

His eyes widened slightly, a bit of apprehension tugging at him, but she nodded at him as she slid him back into her mouth. He stayed still for a moment, those wide, concerned eyes quickly narrowing. Her fingertips stroked along his outer thigh, and he relaxed against her. His movements could barely even be classified as movements. His hips tipped forward just enough for him to technically say that he was doing what she asked of him. 

She hummed around him, an encouraging _mhm_ sound, and he relaxed further. She walked him through it, his breath hitching with each gentle motion she made until her motions slowed and his picked back up. His hips jerked forward gently, each little encouraging sound she made spurring him on until he was losing himself, rocking into her deep and slow, whispered expletives falling in line with her name. 

He willingly relinquished all control when she pushed his hips back down, her movements getting faster. He breathed a moan, adjusting his grip in her hair. “Ames, please—fuck, please.”

She adjusted, her hand coming back to him, her lips meeting her hand with every quick stroke. His hands left her hair completely, coming up to tangle through his own curls. Her hums became more rhythmic, another sensation tugging him down. He gripped onto the wall, hands searching for something to squeeze onto, his words falling faster as his hips began to stutter. 

He cried out her name, his mouth clumsily rushing to repeat it, softer and softer with each repetition. _Ames, Ames, Ames, Ames,_ until his voice was barely even audible. She pulled back, licking her lips and smirking at him. He peeked at her, the waves of his orgasm still gently crashing through him. 

She shifted up, settling into his lap in a way that was decidedly not sexual. He hummed sleepily, a sort of blissful exhaustion settling through him. She ran her fingers through the curls at the crown of his head, pushing a stray curl away from his forehead. “You okay?” 

“You’re…” He trailed off, his fingers lazily tracing their way up her back as he pulled her in for a languid kiss. 

She giggled against his lips as she pulled back to look at him. “Incredible?” 

God, she looked so self-satisfied. She should be. She deserved to be, the way she just had him falling apart for her. And she knew exactly what he was going to say. “No.” 

She raised an eyebrow at him, a smile still in her voice. “No?” 

“Mmm-mmm.” He adjusted to get a better grip around her waist, his kisses growing just a little hungrier. He pulled back, sucking on a particular spot on her neck for a moment before nibbling at her earlobe, relishing in the broken breath it dragged out of her. He ghosted his lips against her ear. “Your _turn.”_

“Jake, you don’t have to—” She stopped short when his lips collided with hers, his hands scrabbling for something to hold onto. “Jake—we can take it—mmmm, take it slow if you—if that’s—” She trailed off, a soft moan escaping her lips as he nipped at her throat. 

“Do you want me to stop?”

“If you want—”

“Do you want me to stop, Amy?” His voice was more authoritative this time. She swallowed, her lips parting as she took a breath.

He used his grip in her hair to tug her head back, delivering a sharp bite just below her jaw, soothing the mark with his tongue when she gasped and tightened her grip on his shoulder. “Fuck, no— _no_ , I don’t want you to stop.” 

He used his grip around her waist to scoop her up with him, lifting her onto his waist the second they were standing. He balanced her half on the edge of the counter, half on his hips, his grip on her waist loosening in favor of letting his hands explore her body. 

Jake _hated_ math. Holt hadn’t been joking that time he’d suggested a math tutor, which he’d only realized when Holt dropped the paperwork off on his desk later that day. One of his most insecure moments was the time that he’d tested into the lowest level math course in college. He’d caught himself defending his calculator use to Gina’s smug glances more times than he’d like to talk about. _I know how to multiply without a calculator, Gina. We don’t all have time to sit around and multiply all day—some of us have criminals to catch._

He hated all of it. Algebra, geometry, don’t even get him started on calculus and trigonometry—even statistics, unless the conversation was about the ‘86 Mets, at which point he could quite possibly list off every stat right off the top of his head, but he was pretty sure that wasn’t exactly the same thing. It didn’t make _sense_ to him. There was no intuition, just a list of rules to follow and… well, he’d never really been good at following rules. He’d rather spend an entire day with Fire Marshal Boone than even let the static set into his brain that higher level math brought on. Even the basic stuff—he could do it, but why waste his time? 

And yet with Amy… God, he could study her for hours. He moved slowly, his eyes studying his fingertips as they crawled across the expanse of her bare skin. She’s all planes and curves and sharp angles. She’s soft skin that reacts to his touch, she’s big, trusting eyes that he would be willing to bet he could calculate the circumference of if he really tried. She was his missing variable. He wanted to trace every inch, plot every point, learn every formula that went into Amy Santiago. He was going to get a start on that tonight. 

But she’d been wanting him, and he couldn’t keep her waiting any longer than he already had. So his movements got more focused, his kisses a little more concentrated—planted instead of just pressed, cultivated into safe places where his feelings for her could grow, keep her warm. He wanted to embed all of his thoughts about her into her skin, give them a home there so that every time she looked in the mirror, the Amy Santiago he saw was reflected back to her. He wanted her to know that woman, too. And he’d take his time acquainting them, but for now… 

He leaned her back on the counter, biting his lip as she propped herself up to watch his next move. He set to work immediately, his fingers ghosting across her skin, marveling at the way she shivered underneath him. He was rediscovering her, the familiarity of her body mingling with the novelty of their new dynamic. It was as if each press of his lips was experimental, his tongue tasting every inch of her. She arched closer to him, all soft, controlled sounds as he nipped at the inside of her thigh. She shifted to accommodate him between her thighs, and he hooked her legs over his shoulders, laughing softly at her little gasp when he pulled her hips closer to him. He bit at the inside of her thigh again, groaning against her skin when she arched a little closer, then looked up to admire her in her rarest form. 

Amy Santiago with no control was a sight to see. It’s a sight he’d seen many times, but one he would never tire of. She trusted him to hold all of the power between them in these moments, and that was something that never slipped by him, even back all those months ago when they were still getting to know each other. Amy hated giving up control. She had a life calendar, some big events planned down to the very _day_ , but when he looked up at her now, she was helpless. Eyes full of desire, soft pleading, whispered _Jake, please_ s that he’d never get tired of hearing (would hear in his dreams sometimes, even when they hadn’t been speaking to each other). Amy Santiago sans her control was something to marvel at, and something that he felt so special to get the opportunity to see—to feel, to _cause._

“You’re so beautiful,” he crooned softly, his thumb coming up to brush against her clit teasingly. She hummed in response, dazed eyes expectantly set on him. He dedicated another moment to watching her—the gentle rise and fall of her chest, the way she tugged her bottom lip between her teeth, her eyelashes fluttering at his slow touches. The corner of his lips tugged up when the frustrated little crease between her eyebrows appeared. 

_“Jake.”_

“Mhmmm,” he hummed, his eyes flickering back down. He drew his thumb away, chuckling as her hips shifted in search of attention. “Talk about impatient.” She seemed entirely unaffected by his teasing, her hips still gently rotating under his hands, a silent plea to be touched. He dipped his middle and ring fingers down, his voice an appreciative murmur, “so fucking wet, Ames.” 

Her breath hitched at his comment, then she was biting back moans as he alternated between slow, calculated strokes and flicking his fingers in tight little circles. God, he missed having Amy right where he wanted her like this. He’d forgotten how quickly he could break her down to this mess of whimpers and curses, forgotten how much she trusted him to take care of her even through all of his teasing. He was going to take care of her—more than just in this moment, he hoped. 

She went completely still when he eased a finger into her, giving her a moment to accommodate before crooking a second finger in to join the first. Before she had the opportunity to properly react, his tongue was on her. Her fingers immediately tangled into his hair. He hummed at the sensation, twisting his wrist to drive his fingers into her at a better angle and muffling a laugh against her when she arched her hips toward him. He switched back to tracing out slow little loops, drawing it out and tasting her leisurely. When her moans got a little more desperate, his thumb replaced his tongue entirely. 

He shifted around the other side of the counter, his fingers keeping up their steady work as he pressed kisses up her hip, his mind set on talking her through her orgasm. His lips had only made it to her ribs when she reached over and grasped him, fingers slightly shaky from his ministrations between her legs. 

“Ames,” he sighed into her skin, his face buried in her chest, each kiss more desperate than the last. He could feel her heartbeat on his lips, probably in time with his own as it prepared to beat straight out of his chest. She was tugging his attention in a new direction with each flick of her wrist. His kisses were interrupted by breathy sounds, his tongue flicking out to taste salty skin. 

The fingers on her free hand shifted to his hair, tugging until he turned to meet her for a searing kiss, his hand still diligently working between her legs. His other hand shifted to her face, tipping her to where he wanted her, holding her in place, biting gently at her bottom lip when she broke the kiss, unable to keep her sounds to herself any longer. 

He would’ve taken a moment to feel proud, her lips trembling against his with nothing but his hand to inspire all those sounds, but as she got closer to the edge, she became more insistent on pulling him over with her. He was already lost in her sounds, in the way she said his name, in her thighs quivering as she neared her orgasm, but then she was twisting her wrist, increasing her speed and he was _not_ about to come for a second time—not yet. That first turn around time had been so quick, but if it happened a second time, he didn’t expect to be so lucky. He couldn’t watch her come for him while she was touching him like that and simultaneously keep it all together.

“Ames, Ames, you gotta stop, you gotta—” He trailed off, his voice giving him away as he breathlessly hummed. “If you don’t—you’re too—if you don’t stop I’m gonna—I can’t—”

Her hand stilled, but remained on him. He thought for all of two seconds that that would be enough, but then her grip tightened, then loosened again, and by the third time her grip tightened, he was certain that he would’ve been better off not saying anything than enduring that. He never lasted long after her orgasm hit her, her muscles contracting around him tugging him right after her every time. Her hand was mimicking that feeling, her sounds completely dissipating into shallow breaths—she was close, and if he wasn’t careful, he would be, too.

“Fuck, _fuck, fuck,_ Ames, please,” he whimpered. Her hand quickly moved to his hip, her grip just as tight there, and his mind cleared enough that he could actually think straight again. 

But then she was grasping for him anywhere she could reach, her back arching off the counter. Her fingers locked into his hair, her voice breaking in the middle of his name each time she said it. He rode it out with her, movements turning soft and slow, swallowing every sound she offered as he kissed her through the crest of the wave. Her sounds became soft and repetitive, breathy and almost sleepy against his lips as she relaxed. Her head tipped back, a breathless laugh on her lips as she peeked up at him. 

“How’re you doing?” He leaned his head on his arms next to her on the counter. She tipped her head to the side and smiled at him, her eyes drifting shut momentarily. “You look so pretty. You need anything? Water? A—mmmm.” She cut him off in the middle of his words with another kiss. He laughed against her lips. “That’s exactly what I was going to say. Another kiss?” 

She rolled her eyes at him, adoration clear on her face. He stood up straight, and she took her time as she shifted to sit up straight on the counter. She wrapped her legs around his hips, her left hand pressing against his ribs while her right moved to rest on his jaw. “Come here.”

He took a few steps forward, fitting in the space between her thighs. He gripped onto her thighs, pulling her just a little closer and helping her legs to hook more comfortably around him. His fingers trailed up her back, his other hand coming up to play with her hair, tucking a few stray strands behind her ear. “Hi.” 

She shook her head at him, biting her lip through her smile. “Hey.” Her fingers scratched up across the nape of his neck, gently trailing into his hair. He leaned in toward the sensation. “How are you feeling?” 

He chuckled quietly, pausing to nuzzle his face against her neck. His fingers trailed from her back, down past her hips, across her thighs, and back. “How are _you_ feeling?” 

She shifted her legs, pulling him that much closer. His groan at the inevitable contact was muffled into her neck. 

“I asked you first.” One of her hands remained on the back of his neck, the other began its descent down his chest. Her eyes followed her hand closely, watching him breathe as her fingers crept lower and lower. “Are you nervous?” 

His adam’s apple bobbed as he visibly swallowed. He took a half-step back, but when she looked up at his eyes, he was looking down. He caught her hand on his chest, taking it in his and shifting her other hand off of his neck and into his hand, bringing them together between them. His gaze remained on their hands, watching his thumbs as he rubbed them across her knuckles. 

“I’m not nervous.” He squeezed her hands, just a gentle pressure, and met her eyes. His eyes flickered between hers, that familiar warmth ever present in her dark eyes. He smiled, hoping a fraction of the warmth she gave off was visible in the gesture. “You said we can wait until it feels right.” 

She squeezed his hands back. “We can, Jake.” 

“It feels right.” He nodded, releasing her hands in favor of resting his hands on her hips, leaning his forehead on hers. “For me. Right now.” He didn’t shift away as one of his hands traced up her body, leaving a trail of goosebumps beneath his fingertips in his path. He tucked her loose hair behind her ear again, his fingers gently tipping her face until their lips were almost touching. “Does it feel right for you?” 

“Yes.” She moved her hand to hold his face, nodding slightly so that their lips were that much closer. “Yes, it feels right. This feels right. _You_ feel right.” 

His laughter brushed against her lips, and it took everything she had not to chase it and close the distance. “I feel right?” 

“We feel right,” she continued, a little rushed—emotion and desire both swirling around inside of her. “Us. Us feels right.”

He flexed his jaw, a tension in him he hadn’t previously noted, as if being this close to her and doing nothing about it was physically weighing on every muscle in his body. He nudged her nose with his, their lips almost touching, but not quite bridging the centimeter wide gap—a gap that felt increasingly wider with each shallow breath that tickled against his lips. 

He licked his lips, the hand on her lower back coming dangerously close to scooping her off of the counter and into his arms. “Bed.”

“No.” She said it with such conviction, something that cemented him to his place in front of her, his nerves buzzing in anticipation as he waited for a directive. It was as if she’d jolted him with electricity with the refusal, igniting energy that was left building inside him with no outlet. “Too far. Here. Please, I want—I _need,”_ the hunger in her voice had something inside of him twisting, something that had him more aware of the aching desire he’d been ignoring, more aware of her soft inner thigh where he was brushing against her, twitching against her skin at the urgency in her pleading. She swallowed, her voice barely a whisper. “Please.”

That was all the convincing he needed. A reserved hum fell against her lips as he finally closed the distance between them. His hand slipped up her back, pressing between her shoulder blades to pull her close to him. The kiss was the opposite of everything going on inside of him. Their tongues met leisurely, slow and playful and inviting, and by the time he hoisted himself onto the counter to hover over her, they’d all but used up any semblance of restraint between them. 

His hand crept down between her thighs, rubbing a teasing trail up the inside of one. He craved the feeling of the mattress dipping underneath their weight, the assurance that when he pushed against her, she’d be pressed into something soft. “Are you comfortable?” 

“Yes.” She was lying, there was no way that the cool marble provided any sort of comfort. Or, he realized when she stretched up to kiss him again, she wanted him so badly that she wasn’t concerned about the counter underneath her. She wanted him _here_ , she wanted him _now_. His eyes flickered over her appreciatively. 

She looked up into his eyes, biting down on her bottom lip as he pointedly parted her thighs. Her fingers roved across his chest—from his collarbone all the way down to his hips, but she never actually grasped him. He was the one who had been nervous about being with her, and even though he felt none of that reservation in this moment, she wanted it to all be on his terms. His heart swelled that much more for her, all the care and concern she harbored for him tangible in the gentle sweep of her fingertips, in the way that she pressed her lips to his. 

Emotion bubbled within him, something that he couldn’t quite name, and all that was left on his lips was her name—a soft, simple declaration, a mutually understood promise that he wouldn’t even be able to put into words if he were asked about it. She spread her legs further to accommodate him in her space as he lowered himself to her. He buried a groan against her neck as he eased into her, slow and steady, the hand that wasn’t holding him up pausing in its seemingly endless trek across her body, gripping wherever he could, hold tightening at the sound of her voice. 

Clumsy would be a good way to describe it. They fell somewhere between the desperation of having been separated for so long and the indulgence of being with someone you truly care for for the first time. It wasn’t the first time, there was no learning involved, but it was a first of sorts. It was the first time that she’d practically melted into his kiss as he rhythmically returned to her, the first time that she gently held is face as her moans turned to whispers, the crease between her eyebrows, parted lips, and the way she arched closer to him letting him known that she was getting close. 

His fingers tangled in her hair as he kissed her, slow and sure, a striking opposite to the way his hips picked up speed. In the end, desperation won. She bit down on his shoulder to muffle her voice, his hips jerking into her hard at the sharp, unexpected bite. She arched her back, unable to bury her responding moan. 

“Do that again,” she whimpered, clutching him closer, arching and shifting and pulling, trying to replicate the exact movement. When it didn’t feel exactly the same, she resorted to biting his shoulder again, his hips pounding against her harder yet again. Her sigh mingled with a sound that could only reasonably be described as a growl on his end. “Mmmm, I’m sorry—I’m sorry, is that okay?” 

“Yes, _yes.”_ He paused, using his grip on her hair to pull her into a kiss, not quite stifling the sounds that they were mutually making. “Fuck, do it more—Ames, please.” 

He sounded so helpless, and Amy couldn’t resist. She bit the sensitive skin at the base of his neck, soothing her tongue over the mark before sucking gently. Jake had always been pretty vocal, but his whimpers pulled her closer to the edge as she licked and sucked down below his collarbone, pulling sharper sounds out of him with nips and bites, his hips never quite returning to a rhythm, more of an erratic, varied pressure as he lost more control with each press of her teeth into his skin. 

She teased him that way until he pulled her hips closer, shifting their angle and effectively changing the entire dynamic between them. “You know how much I missed this?” 

She hummed, her fingers curling over his shoulder as her eyes slipped shut and yeah, _he had her_. For every time she’d ever wanted him to shut up, he knew that she hung onto his every word in these moments. 

“Feels so good,” he murmured, more to himself than for her benefit, trying to compose himself enough that he could address her again. _“Fuck,”_ he whispered. “Missed—mmmm, missed touching you.” He slipped his thumb between them, barely suppressing a groan as her breath hitched. “Missed holding you. Missed kissing you.” 

He paused to demonstrate, catching her in a breathless, hungry kiss. He touched her exactly the way she liked to be touched, his thumb working quick, tight circles that had her shaking against him. He twisted his head to the side, his tongue tracing across her neck on the way to her ear. He exhaled softly, his teeth scraping the edge of her earlobe. He kept up his movements with his thumb, but his hips slowed, his voice low in her ear. “Missed making you come for me.” 

He drew his hips back into her hard, his free hand gripping her hip to help him repeat the motion.

“Jake—yes, yes—”

“Yeah? Mmmm, tell me what you want, Ames.”

“You—fuck, I want you, Jake, _please.”_

He would’ve laughed if he hadn’t been so caught up in her. It struck him again just how insane this whole scenario was. He idly wondered how different his life would be if he hadn’t found her in that handshake seminar the morning after they’d met. To think that she was just supposed to be a one night stand, and now she was his girlfriend, trembling against him on her kitchen counter because she couldn’t fathom waiting another thirty seconds to have him. 

He guessed that no amount of time could tear the memories of her body completely out of his head. Perhaps it was muscle memory alone that allowed him to find just the right angle, to start the trail of wet kisses under her jaw. He quickly abandoned the kisses, lips never leaving her skin as feverish whispers fell from his lips, asking her, telling her, begging her, he wasn’t even sure, but he couldn’t stop.

He felt it the second it hit her. The hand on the back of his neck suddenly slipped up into his hair, fingers locking in and tugging gently. She tugged his lips to hers, interrupting his jumbled chant of some combination of _feels so good_ and _Amy, please_. He sighed against her lips, the fingers on her opposite hand kneading into the small of his back where she gripped him, his final few thrusts slow and deep, his voice muffled into her shoulder. 

Every bit of togetherness in any facade he’d ever built crumbled as he came apart for her. His grip on her was gentle, but constant, fingers dancing across her skin, rubbing across her arms, anything he could do to keep touching her. She hummed as he pressed kiss after kiss to her damp skin—her face, her neck, her collarbone, her shoulder, her chest. He had to be kissing her, had to be touching her, had to be showing her affection in some capacity, lest she forget that he absolutely adores every inch of her. 

After a few moments, he nestled into her, her fingers lazily set on dragging through his curls as they corrected their ragged breathing. He longed for her bed once again, a place where he could wrap his arms around her and just prolong the moment. If he was smashing her into the hard counter where he laid against her, she hadn’t complained about it yet. 

It turned out that the moment didn’t have to be ruined by them extricating themselves from each other. The silence in the room that started out as comfortable was getting less comfortable by the second. His mind was wandering back to the past two weeks, to how weird he had been, to the way that she’d been so understanding and soft with him when he finally shared his fears with her. 

“I’m sorry,” he whispered abruptly. His face was still tipped into her neck, so he couldn’t see her reaction, but her chest took a little longer to rise with a new breath than it had previously. He knew she was going to ask, so he took it upon himself to just continue. “For being weird. And for not talking to you. I know… a lot of the problems we had before were because we weren’t communicating. And then the first time I ran into a problem… I didn’t talk to you about it.” 

“Hey.” She tapped his shoulder, waiting for him to pull back to look at her. She tipped his face toward hers. Her fingers traced along the angle of his jaw, and he allowed himself to close his eyes as he shifted to lean his forehead against hers. “This is all still new for us, Jake. It’s gonna take some figuring out.” 

“Yeah, but that shouldn’t have taken figuring out. I shouldn’t have even questioned talking to you. I just felt so stupid.” 

Her forehead moved against his as she nodded. “I could’ve brought it up, too. I felt stupid for being worried about it. I knew you were being weird, but instead of confronting you about it, I just tried to seduce the problem away.”

He laughed softly. “To be fair, it totally would’ve worked if I hadn’t been so in my head.” 

Her fingernails scratched against his scalp gently as she ran her fingers through his hair. “What’s going on up there, anyway?” 

“Mmmm, I dunno.” His voice was soft and shy. He blinked his eyes open to look at her, finding only warmth and concern in her expression. He pressed his hand over hers, pulling her palm to his lips to press a soft kiss there, his eyes lingering on the lines of her palm as he continued. “I just… I guess I have a tendency to mess things up sometimes. In relationships. And I don’t… I really don’t want to mess up with you, Amy. And like I said, I was so caught up in how things were so hard between us before, and since we’ve started dating, it’s all felt so easy. I guess I convinced myself that the sex is what made things so complicated before.” He took a deep, slow breath. “But, uhm… I was wrong, obviously. And I hope you know I always want you.” 

She was quiet long enough that he hesitantly looked up to meet her gaze again. She pulled her hand out of his, pressing it to his cheek and smoothing her thumb along his cheekbone. “You aren’t going to mess this up, Jake.” The corner of his lips tipped up when she smiled at him. “I trust you. And yeah, we’re probably going to stumble a lot along the way, but we’re going to figure this whole relationship thing out together. Right?” 

He leaned into her, smiling against her lips as he kissed her. “You’re my best friend.” 

“Mmmm, you’re mine.” 

And he didn’t know if she meant _you’re my best friend_ or if she simply meant _you’re mine,_ but either way, he felt that it was true. He’d wear both of those titles proudly. _Amy’s._ He knew he had that goofy smile again, but her smile was just as wide and carefree. 

“Alright, c’mon,” she said after a few minutes. “Let’s go get all cleaned up. I’ll be back for the counter later.” 

He lifted himself off of her, hovering over her with one hand on either side of her shoulders. “That’s my consistent girlfriend,” he hummed happily, leaning down to kiss her one last time before he practically launched himself up in what would’ve been a stretch, had he not collided directly into the corner of her kitchen cabinet. 

“Jake, be—”

His breath left him with a ragged _oomph_. He barely caught himself on his elbow before plummeting straight back into her chest, his face screwed up into a grimace. He squeezed his eyes shut, a low _mmmm, fuck_ that resembled more of a growl than spoken words coming through his gritted teeth. It was a sharp pain, one that made him squeeze his eyes shut so tight that he saw little spots when he opened his eyes again. He nuzzled his face into her neck, some sort of attempt to bury himself in her to escape the pain.

She leaned up more, trying to get a good look at his back with him shifting in pain on top of her. Her fingers gently trailed across his shoulders and into his hair, trying to provide some level of comfort. “Are you okay? Let me see it.” 

“Need a minute,” he whimpered into her neck, “hurts really bad.” 

“Are you bleeding?” 

He rasped out some strangled sound of discomfort. “I don’t know.” 

After a few minutes of Jake muffling his whines into her neck, she finally got him to sit up—carefully—with her. He twisted around to show her his back, wincing at the sensation that moving gave him. At the very least, he’d have a nice bruise. 

“Oh my god…” Amy practically whispered behind him. 

“What?” 

“Nothing. Don’t move.” 

“What? Amy, what’s wrong? Is it bad? Am I bleeding? Am I gonna die a counter sex related death? I mean, there are definitely worse ways to die, but I wouldn’t exactly say that’s _cool_. I always pictured something a little more… ya’know, heroic? Oh god, what are they gonna put in my obituary? Do you think they’ll say—”

“Jake.” 

He turned to look at her, a grin stretched across his face. He hadn’t moved, despite his babbling. “Is it bad, though?” 

She folded up some paper towel and ran it under the sink for a moment, ringing it out before coming back to him. “I don’t know. You’re bleeding, but I can’t tell how bad it is without cleaning it up.” 

He hissed with his inhale when she pressed the cold cloth to his back. “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, her voice low. She kissed him on the shoulder to punctuate the apology.

“S’okay,” he murmured back. “How’s it look, doc?” 

Her fingers kneaded against his skin, careful to avoid directly touching his wound. “I don’t think you need stitches.” 

He hummed. “So what would you recommend for a treatment?” 

She rolled her eyes, leaning into him to press a quick kiss against his lips. “Go get in the shower and I’ll meet you in there when I’m done cleaning up out here.” 

He groaned as he pushed himself off the counter to stand. “Yeah, make the injured guy heat up the water. I see what you’re doing, Santiago. I’m onto you.” 

“I’m sorry, would you rather stay in here and clean up?” She smiled obviously at him, her smile only widening when he pouted in response. “Go, I’ll be in there in a minute. Don’t bleed all over everything.” 

He turned to try and look at his back, not quite able to see the spot where he’d hit the cabinet. “Is it _that bad?”_

She shook her head at him as he stuck his tongue out at her, disappearing into the bathroom. 

A little while later, she was perched on the counter in the steamy bathroom. Her old, baggy NYPD sweatshirt hung off of her shoulders, her bare legs rubbing against Jake’s where he stood in front of her. Jake glanced behind himself into the mirror, his eyes appraising the angry looking wound in the center of his back. 

“God, Amy, it looks like you beat me up.” 

She scoffed, but he turned more toward her, as if she needed to see him as a reminder. He gestured to his body. A collection of little bite marks and hickies decorated his chest and his left shoulder, one barely crossing the threshold from collarbone territory into a space that might be visible over the collar of a shirt. 

She raised her eyebrows at him. “If you’re waiting for me to apologize for that, I’m not going to. You told me to.” 

“Oh, I’m not waiting for an apology. I’m super into it.”

She rolled her eyes, suppressing her smile. “Stop moving so much.” 

He whipped his head back to look at her again, his wet hair flicking water droplets at her. 

“Jake, stop, you’re getting me wet.” 

A brief apologetic look flashed across his face before something more mischievous settled there. “You don’t like it when I get you wet?” 

She rolled her eyes again. “How am I attracted to you?” 

He turned back, an easy smile on his face. “Doesn’t matter, you are. How does it look?” 

She finished dabbing antibiotic ointment on the cut, then carefully sealed a large bandaid over it. “I don’t know. It’s gonna leave a pretty big scar, Jake.” 

He grinned over at her. “Yeah, but I bet it’ll make a pretty cool story one day.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> taking a fun lil creative liberty with the next chapter that I don't think anyone is going to especially love stylistically. content wise I think we're good but (unless I chicken out) the next chapter will be in a perspective we've never seen before and that I've never written before and I don't anticipate it being anyone's favorite chapter lmao BUT i'm gonna do it anyways. And the chapter after that I'm REALLY excited about, so I hope that's of some help. I also might post the next two chapters at the same time because of it being a shift from what I'd normally do (and, in all honesty, perhaps a BIT less relevant—I'm tying up a loose end that probably nobody cares about or remembers but me, it's fine)
> 
> and don't worry, the note is coming I swear! a few more chapters!!
> 
> we still have a minute before it's all over (I KEEP adding more chapters, you know I have trouble letting go!) but I can't believe we're finally getting close to the end of this fic. When I have a more concrete plan on the amount of chapters left, I'll let you guys know. Thank you so much for all the love and support with this story! It's meant so much. ¨̮ Going through some super fun personal stuff, and I appreciate every lil comment and minute you've spent here with me. (also still in disbelief y'all are here reading like 200k of my words?) but ily thank you and I hope you liked it okie dokie bye


	19. i hope he's better than i ever could've been

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> title from Neck Deep's December
> 
> _I came out grieving, barely breathing,_   
>  _and you came out alright._   
>  _But I'm sure you'll take his hand,_   
>  _I hope he's better than I ever could've been._   
>  _My mistakes were not intentions,_   
>  _This is a list of my confessions I couldn't say._
> 
> _Pain is never permanent, but tonight it's killing me._
> 
> _I hope you get your ballroom floor,_   
>  _Your perfect house with rose red doors,_   
>  _I'm the last thing you'd remember,_   
>  _It's been a long lonely December._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay y'all doooon't hate me for this. I put it as its own chapter instead of attaching it to the next one so that it can be skipped in the future lmao. this chapter is just a self-indulgent tying up of loose ends, as mentioned previously. i know it's probably not gonna be the most well-received, but I hope you don't _hate_ it. ¨̮ 
> 
> next chapter is mostly done, but there's a lot of logistics stuff I'm working out about it and a little more I want to add, so I'm anticipating it being done in the next few days. I was going to post them both at the same time, but I figured then I'd just have this chapter sitting in my documents, so I might as well put it out into the void. 
> 
> also just thinking about how I never planned for this fic to have more than like 12 chapters yet here we are

Routine. 

He walks to the coffee shop near his new apartment every day. It’s a new routine, but it’s a routine, nonetheless. He’d always been a creature of habit, which is why taking this new job had been such a big decision for him in the first place. He couldn’t pretend that things had been _great_ for him, exactly. The last year had been painstaking in its own way, and as much as he loved the routine and redundancy that his daily tasks provided him with, he also recognized that distancing himself from his old life might be the best thing for him. 

When he was offered a position on the bomb squad, it took him a week to contemplate the change. He’d made charts, he’d made lists, he’d drafted emails both accepting and passing on the position, but ultimately, one thing made up his mind. 

_Amy._

He hadn’t seen her since that day at the conference where, by the way, she kicked ass. It was really no wonder that he was having such a hard time getting over her. He’d been keeping tabs on her from afar. Nothing crazy, he’d just ask around about her when he ran into mutual friends or colleagues, maybe shamefully fall into the occasional late night sweep of her social medias when he was a few pilsners deep. He knew, if he was going to win her back, he needed to wait until the right moment. 

He wasn’t entirely sure what the right moment _was_ , but he knew that Jake Peralta (who was showing up in her tagged photos on instagram increasingly) would complicate that moment whenever it presented itself. His pros and cons list mostly consisted of important work-related facts, but there were parts of the list that strayed to the subject of Amy.

When she broke up with him, she called him boring. It still stung, even now, to think about how much she disliked some of his favorite things—but that could all be compromised on. They didn’t have to love all the same things, they just had to love _each other_. He still loved her, and he was pretty certain that somewhere in there, she loved him back. Things had gotten complicated between them, perhaps she’d been guided away from him, but on paper, they were perfect for each other. 

Perfect for Amy—a _drastic_ contrast from what Jake Peralta was. He’d done his research on Jake since that day at the conference. He already knew him from when he’d done the audit at the nine-nine, and he had never exactly had an affinity for the man. In fact, he absolutely couldn’t understand why Amy would be interested in him. 

He has staggering arrest records—top two percent of all arrests in the entire NYPD—has some surprisingly high profile cases attached to his name… but Amy isn’t one to climb the ranks by association, so that isn’t what happened. She has her own impressive professional portfolio. It’s possible that she’s drawn to him because of his success, he supposes. 

But then there’s the other side of Jake. The side that has a reputation for being “funny,” though Teddy would just call it immature, and he was pretty sure that Amy would agree with him. On paper, Jake Peralta did _not_ belong with Amy Santiago. Jake Peralta wasn’t stable—financially or otherwise. He barely even had to do any digging to come to that conclusion, so he was positive that it was something Amy knew about her boyfriend. 

Amy was smart, and bold, and beautiful, and yeah, Peralta was attractive enough, he _guessed_ , but there was no way they’d last longer than a few months. Jake’s charm would wear off, and she’d realize that she was meant to be with Teddy all along. He had a savings account and a 401K. He could provide her with a future that Jake could never provide. He already had enough saved that he could put a sizable down payment on a house for her to raise their children in. Jake couldn’t compete with that. He knew it, and soon enough she’d realize it, too.

So ultimately, that’s why he accepted the bomb squad position. _Bomb squad_ wasn’t boring. Maybe Teddy was boring, but he could _change that_. Could Jake change how immature and irresponsible he was? Maybe, but Teddy hypothesized that it would be much easier for him to just leave his comfort zone and try more fun things than it would be for Jake to completely undo a lifetime of debt. And he was already doing a _great_ job at being more fun. I mean, he signed up for a _jazz brunch!_

His new apartment was actually a little further from Amy’s place than his old apartment. This was a place of tension in his decision. Should he really move further from her? Wasn’t distancing himself from her further just going to put him further from his goal?

He’d looked around at a few apartments before he found one that he thought she’d love—it had a perfect reading nook _and_ a room for his home-brewing, and it was decided. He’d have a job that was _way_ more interesting than Jake’s, he’d have an apartment that she couldn’t resist, and soon enough, he’d have her back. 

Now, it was really all just a waiting game. He wasn’t entirely sure what he was waiting for. For Amy to break up with Jake? Maybe. For the moment to just jump out at him? For him to run into her, to finally have his moment to show her how much he’d changed? Perhaps. He’d find out when the moment hit him, and he was sure that his life would never be the same. 

So for now, it was routine. He walked to the coffee shop near his apartment every morning before work. He went in a little later with the bomb squad than he did as a detective, so he could make it in early enough to people watch while enjoying his breakfast. It was always relaxing to him, watching the people buzz in and out of the shop, smiling politely every time someone made eye contact. He drank his black coffee and ate his plain bagel, and then he promptly left, taking the subway to work. 

And it was the same every day. He’d been in the new apartment about a month, and so far, nothing out of the ordinary had happened, which was fine. That’s exactly how he liked it. _Routine_.

The word was still happily floating around his head when the doorbell rang, alerting him that a new customer was walking in. Perhaps it was one of the regulars he saw on Tuesdays. He looked up at the door with a smile, expecting the person to scan the room like most people did. His smile faltered when he saw them. 

So much for routine. 

Amy was ducking under Jake’s arm to walk in the door as he held it open for her. She didn’t scan the lobby like most people did. Her attention was entirely on Jake. His eyes crinkled in the corner as he smiled at something she said, and Teddy watched as his hand gravitated to the small of her back, leaning in and pressing a quick kiss to her temple.

 _Ha_. Amy _hated_ PDA. She’d brush him off, and _this was it._ This was going to be his moment. But he watched, a swell of something resembling jealousy rising within him as she didn’t shrug him off, but instead leaned her head on his shoulder as they stepped into line. She pointed up at the chalkboard sign. Jake’s glance flickered between her face and the sign. He murmured something to her, then he made a stupid face at her and suddenly her laughter was floating through the room. He watched through narrowed eyes. Since when did Amy laugh like that? In all the time they’d dated, she’d only laughed at his jokes a few times, and now she was just carelessly laughing at Jake making a face at her?

Jake’s hands stayed on her almost possessively. He hated it, hated watching him touch her, remembered that night at the hotel when he looked so smug as he slipped past her, stood right behind her and looked back at Teddy with the inquisitive eyes of a seasoned detective. He saw them together the next morning, the way he hugged her and rubbed his hands over her shoulders as he pulled away, the way she took a deep breath as he held her and looked into her eyes, the way Jake’s eyes roved over her as she turned to walk backstage, the thumbs up Jake offered and the private smile they shared when she gave him one final glance before ducking behind the curtain. 

It was just a new relationship, he thought. But that was _months_ ago. She was still looking at Jake in a way that he was positive she’d _never_ looked at him. He definitely would have noticed if he was on the other side of that particular gaze. And she _never_ would’ve let him touch her like that in public. She linked her arm with his, her other hand resting on his bicep, and Teddy watched with raised eyebrows as Jake _slipped his hand into her back pocket. In public!_ And she just… _let him!_

He couldn’t hear what Jake was saying, but he could tell it was in some sort of exaggerated accent. His shoulders wiggled as he emphasized whatever he was saying, and less than a minute later, Amy was pulling his hand out of her pocket, but instead of being tense or taking a step away from him, she just laced his fingers with hers. He can’t even imagine how that move would have gone over if he’d put his hand in her back pocket when they were dating, but he could only imagine that it would’ve ended in a fight. Honestly, it might have ended in a fight if he tried to pull that move _at home_.

Jake let go of her hand when they got up to the counter, then immediately looked to Amy. He was waiting for her to order. Interesting, because a good boyfriend, a boyfriend like _Teddy_ , would have already known her order and simply ordered for her. One medium coffee, two creams, two sugars—exactly how she liked it. Jake leaned toward her and made some sort of comment, earning a laugh from both Amy and the barista. Teddy rolled his eyes. 

He tried to avert his eyes for a moment. He hadn’t touched his bagel from the moment she’d stepped into the building. When he looked back up, Jake was fidgeting with the card machine. He dipped his head down when they turned to scan the lobby for an empty table, silently thanking whatever entity had them choosing one that was close enough that he could eavesdrop without being noticed. 

He steeled himself, another pang of jealousy hitting him as he watched them at the table. Jake slumped over a bit, exaggerating a frown at her, then rested his head on his arm. Teddy expected her to roll her eyes or ignore him, but instead, she leaned her hand across the table to card her fingers through his hair. He looked up at her, his expression softening, and Teddy actually wanted to throw up. 

They were _cute_. 

Absolutely revolting. I mean, just disgusting. Who did he think he was, just walking around _being cute with her?_

“Peralta?” The barista called from the counter. 

Neither Jake nor Amy broke their gaze. Amy’s eyebrows were wrinkled together a bit, as if in determination. Jake murmured something unintelligible at her as he stood up, poking his tongue into the corner of his lips and bobbing his head teasingly. She shook her head, but she didn’t try to suppress her grin. 

She was happy. 

Really happy. Way happier than he’d ever seen her when she was sitting across the table from him. 

Jake strolled back over to the table, setting—that couldn’t be right. He set some kind of drink with whipped cream on it in front of her. She didn’t even wrinkle her nose up at it, either. She smiled up at him, and when he scooped some of the whipped cream off of his own drink and dabbed it on the end of her nose, she just scoffed at him through a laugh as she wiped it off, shaking her head as he licked the excess whipped cream off of his finger. 

Then they just… went back to talking. They were talking about some case they’d been working on, and from their very vague discussion, he could gather that the case wasn’t going well. She scooped most of her whipped cream off of her drink with a spoon, adding it to the mountain on top of his drink. Whatever she had was in a foam cup, so it must have still been a hot drink. Her regular coffee order with whipped cream on it just for Jake? Or was she a completely different person now that she was with Jake? Had she abandoned her usual order completely when she abandoned Teddy?

The Amy Santiago he knew didn’t belong with Jake Peralta. That’s truly what Teddy believed. But watching them together across this coffee shop, it finally hit him. Maybe what was on paper didn’t actually matter. He found himself, oddly enough, _rooting for them_ , for this _different_ Amy Santiago and her new boyfriend. Which, considering that if this were a romantic comedy, Jake would be Teddy’s only competing love interest, ya’know, didn’t really make sense. 

Maybe it was Jake’s charisma. He had to begrudgingly admit that the few times he’d spoken to Jake, he’d been such a charming guy. He could talk himself out of anything (or, Teddy hypothesized, _into_ anything, and he tried to shove away the little voice in his head that tied that particular thought to Jake’s involvement with Amy). 

Jake appeared to be upset about something. He was looking down at the table, shaking his head fractionally, his voice lower than before. The hand around his coffee cup fidgeted, his thumb tracing some stray condensation. Amy reached across the table, squeezing the fingers on his free hand. He looked up at her, a gentle smile on his lips, and Teddy suddenly felt so perverse. It was as if they were the only two people in the room, sharing this private, deep moment that he didn’t understand, had never experienced when he was her boyfriend, and he _just didn’t get it._

Why were they so good together?

“You doing okay over here, Teddy?” 

He jumped at the voice, startled even with it being as quiet as it was. He looked up, floundering as her eyes shifted to Jake and Amy. He cleared his throat. “May! Hi, yeah, everything’s—everything’s great, how are you?” 

She raised her eyebrows toward Jake and Amy, then leaned on the back of the chair next to him. “You know them?” 

May was a barista at the shop. She’d been kind of flirting with him the past few weeks, and he’d been more than receptive to it. The only reason he hadn’t asked her out is because he’d been so preoccupied with his plan to eventually win Amy back. 

Teddy swallowed, looking down at the table as he nodded. “Yeah. Uh, she’s my ex.” 

Realization passed across May’s face. “I see. And how do we feel about her?” 

Teddy looked back over at them. Jake’s disappointment from before was nowhere to be seen. He was grinning widely at her, tugging on the end of her ponytail, unfazed as she smacked his hand away. She scooped some of the whipped cream off of his drink, clearly planning to dab it onto his nose like she did to him, but he quickly captured her finger between his lips. She made a face at him and pulled her hand back, crossing her arms. He held his hands up innocently, muttering something along the lines of _it was self defense, Ames!_

“I’m happy for her,” Teddy finally said. He continued watching them for a moment, smiling wistfully. He wanted to be that for Amy, but he just wasn’t. He had never been to Amy what he was seeing with Jake right now. He wasn’t sure what it was about Jake Peralta, but he was sure that whatever quality he had that made her look at him like that… Teddy just didn’t have it. 

“They’re cute,” May agreed. “She’s pretty.” 

“Yeah,” Teddy laughed quietly. “She is.” He looked up at May. “Hey, uh… this might seem kind of out of the blue, but do you want to go out sometime?” May glanced over at Jake and Amy, a sort of guarded expression in her eyes. “I think… I think maybe I was having a hard time getting over her, and that’s why I hadn’t asked you out before. But seeing her so happy… I’m ready to move on, too. And I realize now that this is, like, probably the worst way I could’ve asked you out, like, god, the timing on this one is just _perfect_ —”

“I’d love to, Teddy.” 

He grinned up at her. “Yeah?” 

She smiled back. “Yeah. I’m free on Friday if that works for you.” 

He nodded, his smile stretching even wider. “That works for me.” He took out his phone, passing it over to her. “I can text you after work today for the details?” 

She quickly typed in her number, sliding the phone back across the table to him. She raised an eyebrow at the bills in his hand, freshly pulled out of his wallet. He fumbled with them. “I, uh, is it awkward if I order them some bagels? I feel weird just walking past them to leave for work.” 

“No, that’s not awkward.” She held her hand out, and he passed her the cash. “What flavors?” 

“Cinnamon sugar for her and… I don’t know, maybe, like, asiago for him?” He bit back the comment looming in his mind about how Jake was cheesy, he’d probably like asiago. He was happy for her, honest. 

A little bitter. But happy for her. 

“You’re a really good guy, Teddy.” 

“Thank you.” He rubbed at the corner of his mouth, failing to wipe the smile away. “I’m excited for our date.” She grinned and took a step backward, toward the register. “Oh, and you can just put the change in the tip jar.” 

He watched her receding toward the register until she turned her back, then he reluctantly turned his gaze back to Jake and Amy. He picked at his bagel, then finished his coffee. Amy was watching out the window, but Jake was watching her. Had Teddy given her that much attention? Did his eyes used to gravitate toward Amy like she was the only thing that mattered? He knew they never joked and laughed and teased each other like Jake and Amy had been, but he thought that their relationship was good in a different kind of way. He thought that, once upon a time, though he was clearly never what Jake was for her, he thought that he was still _good_ for her. He loved her. He cared for her. He took care _of_ her, as much as she’d let him. 

May walked over to their table with their bagels, setting each one in front of its respective owner. 

“Oh, we didn’t order—” Jake trailed off, raising an eyebrow at Amy. Amy shrugged. 

“Someone must’ve been thinking about you two.” She smiled at them. “You two are so cute. Have a nice day.” 

“Thanks, you too.” Amy smiled at May, then she and Jake shared a confused look as May walked away. They both looked after her for a moment, then they each turned to glance around the lobby. 

Jake saw him first. He shifted closer to Amy, this infinitesimal little bit that had another pang of jealousy stirring within Teddy. Jake’s hand moved to her forearm, then she followed his gaze, her eyebrows raising when she saw Teddy looking back at her. He shouldn’t be jealous. He just asked out May. But it was _possession_ causing Jake to grab Amy’s arm, to move slightly closer to her. He saw Teddy and resorted to immediately marking his territory, using that small gesture as a way to tell Teddy _she’s mine_. 

And he was right. There was nothing he could do about it. Amy was Jake’s now. 

He resisted the urge to groan, shoving away that bitterness within him and smiling as he made his way over to their table. 

“Hey, guys.” 

Jake watched him, and Teddy tried to ignore the way his thumb rubbed against Amy’s wrist. Amy looked puzzled, watching him with that same guarded expression that she had when she opened the door to him in her hotel room that day. “Hi, Teddy.” 

“I, uh…” He sighed. Jake averted his eyes when Teddy exchanged his glance, instead turning to look at Amy. “I actually just wanted to apologize.” 

Jake looked back up at him at that. Amy’s eyebrows pulled together. “You wanted to apologize?” 

“Yeah. To, uh, both of you.” He looked back to Jake, who held his gaze this time. “Jake, I, uhm, I know I told you at the conference that I wasn’t going to stop trying to win Amy back.” Jake’s eyes flickered to Amy, down at the table, back to Amy, and then finally settled back on Teddy’s face. He glanced at Amy. She was looking at Jake with raised eyebrows. Jake hadn’t told her. He wasn’t going to lie, whether he was giving up on Amy or not, some part of him really enjoyed causing a minor problem with that bit of information.

He resisted the urge to smile. “I just wanted to inform you both that I will no longer be bothering you.”

Jake and Amy exchanged another glance that was just overflowing with confusion. “Uh, thank you, but…” Amy trailed off. 

“What… uh, what changed your mind?” Jake finished. 

He only _barely_ resisted the urge to roll his eyes at Jake finishing her sentence. “Just… watching you guys together. I gotta be honest, I don’t really understand… _you_ , as a couple, I mean… but you’re clearly in love with each other.” 

Jake’s eyes widened at that, and when he turned to look at Amy, she was wearing a matching expression. Amy spluttered quietly, and Jake cleared his throat. They hadn’t told each other that they loved one another. Teddy’s mind was working overtime. They’d been dating for—when was the conference? At least like, eight months, right? And they hadn’t said they loved each other yet? Maybe they weren’t as perfect as he’d previously thought. Maybe—maybe he shouldn’t give up. He’d told her he loved her three months into their relationship, and she reciprocated easily. _Maybe he should propose to her._ He didn’t have his grandmother’s ring on him, but he could do it without the ring and just get the ring after she said yes. Maybe she was looking for a way out of the relationship, that’s why she hadn’t said she loved him yet. _It finally made sense._ They weren’t in love, they just—

But then his eyes flickered back to their hands. Jake’s thumb still brushed across her wrist, slow and steady. It had only been a few seconds, but Amy was clearly stumbling trying to find something to say. He’d made both of them uncomfortable, and while he didn’t really care how Jake felt, he cared about how Amy felt. And Jake was trying to comfort her with his hand on her wrist, even though he was clearly just as uncomfortable. Maybe Jake wasn’t a bad guy, after all. 

“So,” Teddy began, cutting in before either of them could say anything stupid that would cause further problems than he’d already inspired, “I just wanted to apologize and assure you that you won’t have anything else to worry about. And Amy, I hope…” He shrugged. “I hope Jake’s everything for you that I wasn’t.” He turned back to Jake. “And I hope you’ll take care of her.” 

Jake smiled at Amy. “She doesn’t need me to take care of her. But,” he let out a breathless laugh, his grin widening when she smiled softly at him, “I’m not going anywhere.”

They appeared to be lost for a moment, smiling at each other and sharing a moment that Teddy was clearly not included in. He smiled anyway. “Have a good day, guys.” 

They both looked up at him as if he’d snapped them out of hypnosis. “You too, Teddy.” Amy offered him a genuine smile. “Thank you.” 

He tossed them a half-hearted wave, then turned to smile and wave at May before he walked out the door. He glanced back in through the window as he walked toward the subway station. Jake was talking animatedly, his hand no longer on Amy’s wrist—probably explaining to her what happened at the conference. She was listening intently, picking at her bagel. He walked out the door, he walked out of her life, and he wasn’t even lingering in her mind. 

Good. Good for her. He wanted her, he wanted to be the one who made her happy, but if he couldn’t be, he still wanted her to have that happiness—even if it was with someone else. Part of him wanted to keep pushing, wanted to keep trying with her, but he saw the two of them together. Things between them seemed more together than he ever would’ve guessed—except for the love thing, that was definitely weird. Especially considering that he was pretty sure he’d never seen two people look as in love as they did, which, coming from him, _really_ meant something. He wished he didn’t see it. He wished they looked like an awkward couple that made no sense, but they just weren’t. They had more chemistry just looking at each other than Teddy had witnessed in any of the couples from those romantic comedies he’d watched. 

He hoped that one day he could find someone that would make him forget about Amy the way that Jake made her forget about him. He didn’t think it was possible. He remembered everything about her, from bonding over police codes at tactical village, to quiet dates in dim restaurants, to finally finding a pilsner that she loved. He remembered the first time she kissed him, remembered the weight of her against his chest, the way she smiled at his jokes. 

She was so different with Jake. She wasn’t so serious. She laughed instead of just smiling, she held his hand, she just looked so _happy._ His mind wandered to countless dates where they sat across from each other, quietly picking at their food, nothing but small talk between them at best. They never laughed like she and Jake were, even during their best moments.

But that’s the saying, right? If you love someone, you let them go. If she and Jake didn’t work out, maybe she’d come back to him. He hoped so. He’d pursue things with May, but in the back of his mind, he knew that he’d drop everything for Amy if she ever changed her mind. 

Until then… _if_ that time ever even came… he’d have to just let her go.

He’d hold onto her somewhere in his heart, hold onto all the dreams and memories that she’d shared with him, but ultimately, Amy wasn’t his anymore. Even if he could somehow find a way to get Amy to leave Jake for him, as much as it pained him to say it, it would be wrong of him. He saw how happy Jake made her, and that was just on a random Tuesday in a coffee shop. Teddy spared himself, not taking the time to imagine just how happy Jake could make her when he was really trying, not when they were just casually being themselves and going about their daily lives.

For a second, he thought about turning back and actually proposing to her, but he shook the thought off almost as quickly as it had arrived. She deserved better than him coming in and trying to wreck her relationship. He gave one final glance at the coffee shop before he turned the corner. Maybe he’d run into her at work sometimes. 

He couldn’t dwell on every mistake he’d made with her. He’d just have to suck it up and hope that Jake does better than he ever could have. 

It’s what she deserves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's a series wrap on Teddy! (he'll probs still be mentioned a few times, but he's not coming around)
> 
> Okay, taking a different approach to the closing notes in this chapter because I don’t know that I’m going to go through and point these things out about Jake in the following chapter, but I want to be clear about a few things in case it didn't come through in this chapter.
> 
> This is Teddy's perspective and Teddy's perspective _only_ , meaning that when he's seeing things and assigning words like _possessive_ and Amy _belonging_ to Jake, those are _Teddy's_ thoughts, not Jake's. Jake does not endorse this message, Teddy does not pass go or collect $200.
> 
> I chose to use Teddy’s perspective because I thought seeing them interacting through the eyes of someone who absolutely wants nothing more than for them to fail and that person being unable to deny how good they are for each other was a fun take. I could've just tossed Teddy out of the story w a throw away line (I'm sure in some ways that's preferable—the less Teddy the better, right?) but I think it's a fun take to get a little bit of insight on how different Amy's relationship with Teddy was vs. her relationship with Jake. Amy would never have been dwelling on specific interactions with Teddy like he was in this chapter, and we get to see the way he treated Amy through his eyes and how he genuinely thought he was a good boyfriend, which I think also points to how Jake is just suuuuch a better fit for her (not that any of us needed convincing pls). Anybody else’s perspective we’ve seen, they’re rooting for Jake and Amy to get together and succeed, but Teddy ultimately wants them to break up because then he has a chance with Amy again, so it was just a different take. shrug shrug 
> 
> That brings us to Teddy and his deal w possession. Jake _possessively_ touches Amy. Amy is _Jake’s_ , not _his_ anymore. Teddy is team Amy’s an object (because I hate him but for some reason I feel like this take doesn’t feel too far off canonically lmaooo). Anyways in case I don’t bring it up in the next chapter, let me reiterate that Jake obviously doesn’t feel this way and isn’t thinking this way. He’s not touching her possessively, he’s just a casually touchy dude. His touch on her wrist when he sees Teddy is more of a _hey look_ touch, and when it lingers, it’s more of a protective touch than a possessive one. 
> 
> Also note that the barista, Teddy’s new love interest, is named May. Wonder if his next girlfriend will be named Mya. For the rest of his life, Teddy only dates anagrams of Amy.
> 
> So say goodbye to Teddy in this fic. We'll never hear from him again. (And one final round of apologies for putting you through a whole 4k word chapter from Teddy's perspective). ((Next one will make up for it, I promise)). 
> 
> I mean, he signed up for a _jazz brunch!_


	20. waiting for the right words

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> title from The Maine's Black Butterflies & Deja Vu. literally this entire song, this entire song has been on my mind from the second I started this fic and I'm going to resist typing out every single lyric here but please go listen to this song it's important to me that you listen to this song. i'll remind you again at the end. thank you. 
> 
> _I've been searching for the right words,_   
>  _Right words, but I, I can't even find an echo,_   
>  _Don't you let go._
> 
> _There are only twenty_   
>  _Six letters I can use,_   
>  _Just to tell you I won't let go,_   
>  _Don't you let go._
> 
> _I lose my voice when I look at you,_   
>  _Can't make a noise though I'm trying to,_   
>  _Tell you all the right words,_   
>  _Waiting on the right words._
> 
> _Just another lovesick afternoon,_   
>  _Black butterflies and deja vu,_   
>  _Hoping for the right words,_   
>  _Waiting for the right words._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was originally supposed to be the final chapter, but i have since added more. ¨̮

Look…

It’s not like he’d never thought about it. 

In fact, he’d actually thought _a lot_ about it.

But after they ran into Teddy that day, it was practically all he thought about.

He had been having suspicions that he was falling in love with her.

He remembered the first time it occurred to him, just a passing thought at first. She had to leave on a work assignment. It was just a week. They’d been separated before for varying amounts of time over work, over guys’ weekends, over Amy helping Kylie through a serious fight with her husband. But they always had a line of contact. There was always the odd text.

**Jake:** charles is trying to make us eat some eggs he found in a tree?? plz send help 

**Ames:** Drop your location if you need an ambulance. Don’t come home with the plague! 

**Ames:** She turned on 27 Dresses again and I never thought I would actually miss Die Hard.

 **Jake:** lemme know if u need a distraction babe ;) 

**Ames:** If you send that video of you dressed like John McClane again, I swear to god… 

**Jake:** 1st of all u kno it turns u on

Due to the nature of the case, Holt made it clear that she could _not_ have personal contact with anyone from the squad. The guy they were tracking had been hacking into phones, so for her safety and the security of the case, she had essentially dropped off the face of the earth. 

_But Captain, what if we get a lead on the blue ribbon case while I’m gone?_ They’d invested so much time in the case, and while they’d gotten a few more leads and had a suspicion about their suspect, no lasting strides had been made. Amy had been stressing about the possibility of a development occurring in her absence from the second Holt chose her to go.

Holt turned and looked directly at her, his voice an even lower timbre than usual—disappointment. _I’ll believe that when I see it._

So… yeah, that left Jake feeling a bit more sensitive than usual, what with the case being full of dead ends and his ~~dad~~ _captain_ being disappointed in him, and all. He smiled and assured her that everything was fine, but he missed her the second she walked into the airport. 

They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but he had never felt fonder than when he was with her. 

It was the third day of her absence when it hit him. He was home alone, something that he had rarely been since they started dating—even more so now that they’d officially been together for a little over a month and a half. _Especially_ at night. Most nights were spent together in one of their apartments, splitting boxes of takeout over movies or crossword puzzles. He would kiss her before he finished chewing his food and she would smack him on the shoulder, but she would always kiss him back. 

It was still so easy to get caught up in her, but now she grounded him, too. They complemented one another, an ebb and flow between them that seemed to quell even the most deeply rooted of his fears. They argued, of course. There was the fight over his old mattress, probably their most catastrophic fight in all the time that he’d known her. They actually didn’t speak to each other for a whole night over the mattress fight. He kept pointing out that she’d slept on his mattress so many times and her counterpoint of _yeah but that’s when I was only staying here once every week or two, not three times a week_ made him roll his eyes and then it went from a disagreement to an argument and the more irritated they both got, the more things escalated until Holt had to pull him aside and talk him through it. They talked it out, decided on a new mattress together, and their relationship was better from the experience.

With Amy, he was learning to compromise like he never had before. He was learning that even when he made mistakes, even when he was wrong, she was there with open arms (even if she did sometimes do that little disappointed head shake that she didn’t think he noticed). She would ruffle her fingers through his hair as she held him close to her, and she would just sit with him through the aftermath. She was kind and gentle when he needed it. She hadn’t pushed him to talk about it at all the day he came home almost in tears over something his dad said. She held him, and when he apologized, she pressed soft kisses across his jawline, to his chin, gently against his lips. She leaned her forehead against his, and without any prompting, the words came tumbling out of him. He told her everything, and she just listened and held him through it. He fell asleep tangled up in her, her fingers trailing comfortingly between his shoulder blades until everything faded into his dreams. 

She _was_ his dream. 

But she knew when to call him on things, too. She was game for the jokes and the teasing, would absolutely lose herself in a good competition with him, but she knew exactly when and how to reel him in when he started getting in too deep. When he’d spin out on a case ( _the_ case really, he’d only been spinning out on one case as of late), she was there to unravel the strands of reason with him, but then she’d pull him away just as easily (okay, more easily than anyone else, at least). 

When it came to the blue ribbon case, she was the only one who could talk him off the edge when their circumstantial evidence hadn’t been enough to get them the warrant they were gunning for. The case had all but completely fizzled, and while he still kept tabs on the only reasonable suspect, nothing had happened that would allow him to make an arrest, and if it weren’t for her, he’d probably either be so focused on the case that he wouldn’t be sleeping at all or he’d be dead—murdered by Rosa for making an arrest without adequate evidence and causing another one of his infamous 48 hours situations.

All of these thoughts were running through his head because he _missed her_. He wanted her there, wanted her head leaning on his shoulder while he talked about the weird day he’d had. Charles had to help catch a _peacock_ walking down Sixth Ave, and he couldn’t even tell her about it. All of his stories, all of his jokes, all of his feelings and his news and his mistakes… He wanted to share it all with her. 

And that was it. The first time the thought actually crept into his mind, taking him almost completely by surprise. 

_I think I love her._

He was laying in bed, absentmindedly scrolling through his phone. He had somehow found himself looking at pictures of them when it hit him. He rolled over in bed, propping himself up on his elbows as he toyed with the thought. He loved Amy Santiago.

 _Of course_ he loved her. That thought in and of itself wasn’t entirely new to him. He knew that he loved her. He’d loved her for a long time—as a friend. It wasn’t something he’d ever _said_ to her. He chuckled quietly at the thought of telling Amy that he loved her during the height of their friends with benefits set up. But whether he said it or not, he definitely loved her. He loved her in that way that meant he’d do anything for her. Even at their worst, he loved her. He loved lots of people like that. He loved Gina, but even though he’d describe the type of love he felt for those two women in the exact same way at that time, there was always something _different_ about his love for Amy. He couldn’t put his finger on it now, and he definitely wouldn’t have been able to then. It’s not like he was in love with her.

Not then.

But now… he was in love with her. He _thought_. 

He was pretty sure. 

Why else would he want to share all those little pieces of himself with her? Is that how you know it’s love? When you want to share even the bad parts? He isn’t afraid to share the bad things when they come up, because he knows she’s going to be there for him the same way that he would be there for her if the roles were reversed. Was that love?

Love had always been so fickle for him. He started off in such a rocky place, right from the beginning of his life. A broken home, a broken spirit. Love was given in hours dedicated to working a second job that his mother didn’t want. Love was the hours spent away from the people you cared about because you had to. To survive, to improve. Love was teasing between friends, siblings he hadn’t been born with but that had always been dear in his heart. 

And sometimes, life had proven to him on more than one occasion, love was darker than that. Sometimes love was lying, hiding secrets that benefitted no one. Love could be empty, full of nothing but broken promises and half-hearted pleas for forgiveness. Love could be leaving altogether, because _this is what’s best, Jake. Your dad loves you so much, but things are really hard right now._ Love was confusing, love could hurt. It had hurt him before, and not just with his dad. 

It had hurt her, too. He had known that for far longer than he’d admitted having feelings for her at all. He could see it written all over her in all of their interactions from very early on. The way she’d shy away from the intimacy, pulling back when he held her too close, kissed her too slow. Her rules, strict and sure as she set boundaries that he’d chip away at for months and months. Was that what love was? They started out in such a different place, and each day it seemed to him that they made each other better. It felt like love. 

But he’d been wrong before. He’d messed things up before, with other women (women for whom his feelings paled in comparison to the way he felt for her, but the point stood). He’d said the words too soon, bursting the bubble of a newer relationship that wasn’t quite ready for such a heavy confession. Other times, he’d said it when he hadn’t truly felt it. At least not like this. Is that what this was? 

Whatever it was, he could feel it in his fingertips, feel it in every cell in his body that longed to be close to her. If this was love, he’d take it. But how was he to know? 

He shoved the feeling deep inside himself, somewhere where it wouldn’t slip out and bother him. Somewhere that it couldn’t destroy something that he’d come to enjoy so much. He’d deal with the question another time. He missed her, and for now, that was enough. _That_ confession wouldn’t send anyone running. 

That’s exactly what he told her when he saw her again, shut safely behind his apartment door, his lips on her neck as he crooned the words against the base of her throat. 

_Missed you so much, babe._

Even this confession, as true as it was, was much easier to hide behind a front of desire. He missed her. Missed the way he’d wake up in the middle of the night to find her fingers curled around the edge of his shirt, missed the way she’d snuggle in closer as he stretched in the morning. He missed hanging around the house with her, missed the way she’d hum songs until they crept out of her head and into his. He missed going to the grocery store with her, for fuck’s sake. He missed how she somehow always knew the best piece of produce, how to tell if an apple was ripe when his expertise only went as far as _green ones_ or _red ones_. He missed teasing her about how he was in the mood for gummy worms until she rolled her eyes and handed him one of those apples. The apple was his plan the whole time, but he couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get her to roll her eyes at him. 

He pictured this moment on his way to pick her up from the airport. Pictured himself telling her he missed her, telling her the stories that she’d missed in her absence. He knew he wouldn’t be able to stop talking, to stop filling her in on all the gaps, to stop asking her question after question about the cool things she had done. But he shied away from the idea of holding her in his arms, saying that he missed her with nothing but words. Storytelling is his craft, and of course he had a way with words. When the words were about him kicking ass at work or explaining something crazy he just happened to see, they came to him so easily. Other times, words failed him. He could spend forever just hoping and waiting for the right words, but they’d never come. Namely, moments where those words might bare his soul were particularly difficult for him. 

He was practically silent in the car, his fingers intertwined with hers on the center console. He was basking in her presence, happy just to hear her breathing next to him. She talked about her case and he listened, prompting for more information. But she could tell there was something on his mind. She always could. 

“Jake, is everything okay?” 

He glanced over at her, concern knitting her eyebrows together slightly as she inspected him. He looked back toward the road, a frown forming on his face when she unlaced her fingers from his. Her hand hesitantly touched his face, fingers following the familiar angle of his jaw. He tipped his head toward the contact until she was practically holding his face in her hand. She giggled softly. 

“I missed you, Peralta.” 

“I lo—” He cut off abruptly, his breath catching in his throat, then coming out in a soft little huff. He straightened back up in his seat, coughing loudly into the crook of his elbow, then smiling over at her. He was panicky, and he was doing a terrible job at pretending that he wasn’t. 

“Sorry. I, uh, _lost_ my phone. While you were gone. For like two days.” He cleared his throat, shrugging to punctuate the whole ordeal, then peering over at her to see that she clearly didn’t buy whatever weird, misplaced cover he came up with. “Don’t know how I survived without you.” 

There was a silent, awkward beat. He was already trying to scramble for words. Then she pulled at his arm. He glanced at her as she pulled his arm back onto the center console. She traced her fingers along the crook in his arm, idly tracing the paths his veins laid out for her. 

“Where did you find it?” 

She was offering him an out.

So he hid behind it. All the way home, chattering about the made up location of his never lost phone. He hid all the way into his apartment, hands hungrily pulling her closer, shedding jackets and t-shirts and socks until there was nothing left but them, nothing to hide behind but his eyelids that fluttered shut when she kissed that spot on his chest, his heart beating so hard that he was sure she could feel it on her lips, a combination of the desire for the woman ghosting her lips across his waist and the weight of much more serious feelings lingering beneath the surface. She was allowing him to hide in plain sight even when he was sure that she could see right through him. Perhaps love wasn’t on her mind (it _wasn’t_ on his, remember?), but she knew that he missed her, knew that her body was among the last things he missed about her. Of course he missed that as well, but there was so much about her to miss. Her voice, her laugh, the way she tucked her hair behind her ears, the way she looked up at him, adoration in her eyes as she waited for him to relax into the blankets with her. 

It was a couple weeks later before his accidental realization turned into an undeniable truth. If you would have asked him how he thought he’d realize that he loved her, he wouldn’t have ever predicted it would be like this. 

It had been almost a year and a half since the night that he met her, the night that she flirted with him for twenty seconds and he became obsessed with her forever. It was a wonder to him that after all this time, each time with her left him all-consumed by her. She was gorgeous, impossibly so, every little flaw making him want her even more. They stumbled into the bathroom together after a night at the bar with their friends, clumsy and tipsy and full of desire. They hadn’t even been in the shower for three minutes when it happened. Steam billowed through the room, making everything between them even blurrier than the alcohol already left them. The water ran down his body in little droplets, and she chased each one with eager fingers. She moved to lean against the wall of the shower mid-kiss, but she bumped the handle with her elbow. The hot water shifted to ice-cold before they could even register what caused it, and everything happened so quickly from there. 

They both jerked to get away from the cold, her leg getting caught between his. She grabbed his chest as she fell forward, and he tried to catch her but they were slippery, _everything was slippery_ and they were a few drinks in, _okay?_ He reached out to catch her and they collided, but her leg tucked between his calves got caught and he tipped backwards, nothing but the shower curtain to catch him. So they tipped out of the shower, tearing the shower curtain off of the curtain rod, which was displaced onto the floor immediately next to where he landed, Amy safely on his chest. 

After a quick check that he was okay, her laughter was impossible to break. With every giggle that flowed out of her, he’d start to laugh, too. His arms were wrapped around her, holding her close as her laughter rumbled against his chest, and he was sure that he had never been happier in his life than he was in that moment. Her bathroom was completely trashed, cold water still flowing into the tub. He’d probably have some bruises from the fall the next day, but she was in his arms, laughing into his chest, then her lips were pressing against his collarbone and it didn’t matter that the cool air was raising goosebumps all across his damp skin. She scared them away with each press of her lips, and with her, he felt warm. 

Perhaps it was true that love was fickle, but Amy Santiago was not. She’d proven that to him time and time again. She was constant. She was sure. She was brave, and strong, and independent. She was smart, she was competitive. In the least possessive way, she was his. She was his and he was hers, two pieces of a puzzle that, after a fair amount of trial and error, fit together so perfectly. 

And undeniably, definitely, without a single doubt in his mind, he loved her. 

He was in love with Amy Santiago. 

But he wasn’t going to tell her. 

Not yet. 

Because no, Amy Santiago was not fickle. Her love would not be, either. But he couldn’t ruin a moment like this like he had done in other relationships, a moment where she proclaimed through her laughter that _maybe a bath is more their speed_. Then, even more importantly, he couldn’t tell her that he loved her like _this_. When she was straddling his hips and the running water was all but forgotten as she used his chest as an anchor to lean on, her hips working into a rhythm on top of him. He couldn’t tell her that he loved her for the first time with her nails pressing tiny crescents into his chest, her eyes clamped shut in ecstasy as she told him how good _(so good)_ he felt inside of her. He couldn’t tell her like this. 

But he could watch her through narrowed eyes, holding onto the feeling in his chest because whether he said it aloud or not, he had never been more sure of anything in his life. He loved her. 

And he was going to tell her. He didn’t know when, and he didn’t know how, but he was definitely going to tell her. For days after that moment, he’d have the words right on the tip of his tongue, but he’d lose his nerve the second he looked at her. He’d exhale a shaky breath, his voice seemingly lost inside of him.

But it was okay. He needed to take his time with this. There was a time in his life when he would have rushed this declaration, but with Amy, it was so much more important than that. He wanted to get it all right, get every word right, because that’s what she deserved. Every time he thought he had it all down, he’d look at her and lose his voice all over again. Every time he looked at her. 

It seemed like no matter how much he searched for the right words, he always found another way that Amy just surpassed them. It was as if there weren’t enough words to really explain his feelings to her.

But that didn’t mean he was going to stop trying. 

—

Things between Jake and Amy had been going _great_. She had no major complaints, and the minor complaints that she had, they addressed them and worked through them. They were a great team, as it turned out. All of her previous concerns had proven to not be problems at all. Dating Jake was better than she ever could have imagined. 

She had suspected early on that maybe, just _maybe_ he was falling in love with her. 

And at the time, that scared her to death.

But then that day when they ran into Teddy, when he’d so helpfully suggested that she and Jake were so _obviously_ in love, causing both of them to fumble and stumble and splutter, she began to think about things a little more critically. 

She _could_ love Jake Peralta, sure. He was an incredible man. But _did she?_

She had surely said those three words for a lot less.

Less than the way he pressed kisses into her palms as he pressed her into the mattress, the way he cupped her face when he kissed her, strong and sure. The way he looked into her eyes when she spoke, always interested in what she had to say and what she was doing and who she was as a person. The way he spoke to her, words so kind and encouraging and personal and _real_.

She was pretty sure that he loved her, and she thought that maybe, _just maybe,_ she might love him back. 

But she couldn’t tell him. 

Not yet. 

Not until she was absolutely, one-hundred percent, without a single doubt in her mind sure that that’s what this was. The last person she’d said it to, she said it more out of a feeling of obligation and a desire to avoid the awkwardness that not reciprocating would bring than she did because of her actual feelings. That wasn’t the case with Jake. Strangely enough, while she wouldn’t bring it up to say it first just yet, she was certain that if he said it first, she would say it back with no reservations. 

That meant something. It meant something big, she knew. If she didn’t have any reservations, that meant that she did, in fact, love him. It meant that the only reason she wasn’t telling him was because it scared her. 

_But_ , a little voice in her mind reminded her, _that wasn’t necessarily true._ Maybe she wasn’t really _sure_ about her feelings still. She needed to give herself time to make sure that the feelings stuck around before she brought them up to him.

She saw him. Even when he tried so hard to make himself invisible, even when he tried to downplay his traumas, to make jokes out of every serious moment, she saw. She saw the glistening in his eyes when that commercial came on, the one about taking time to be a dad. When things got too serious, too emotional, she could physically see him wither away from the interaction. 

He was fairly in touch with his emotions, sure. He had no problem crying in front of her, even. He’d turned on the Notebook one day, chattering happily about how he’d never seen it, but he’d heard that it was a good movie. He looked over at her at the end, eyebrows furrowed as if she had betrayed him with her lack of tears. His own tears streaked his cheeks. 

“Ames, are you seeing this? _She’s_ Ally. I didn’t even see it coming.” His chin quivered as he turned back to watch the final scenes. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him into her shoulder. 

As the movie ended, he wound his arms around her, too. They sprawled out on the couch, him on top of her, his weight shifted to the side so that she was essentially boxed in between his body and the back of the couch. After a few moments, he pulled out of the hug, his grip on her shoulders loosening. He pulled back to look at her, playing with a loose strand of her hair and smiling shyly as he met her eyes. 

It would have been the perfect moment to tell him that she loved him. 

But she saw all those little scars that he carried with him. She wasn’t sure exactly what the future would hold for them, but she was sure about one thing: she was going to do everything in her power to make sure that she was never one of those scars. 

She couldn’t imagine what it would do to him if she said those words too soon. He was so genuine, almost childlike, despite the many experiences that he’d been through. The thought of her telling him that she loved him when she wasn’t one hundred percent, without a doubt positive that she did was out of the question. Because what if she didn’t? 

What if she was moving too quickly? What if she was getting swept up in how great things were now, and when there was a serious complication, one of them would realize that things weren’t as serious between them as they’d previously thought? What if it felt like love, but it wasn’t really?

And what if he didn’t love her? What if she was seeing things that weren’t really there? What if she scared him away by bringing in this word that was so daunting and monumental, a word that seemed so much bigger than any of the times that she’d stared straight down the barrel of a gun? What if he wasn’t ready to hear it? What if he truly didn’t feel that way about her? What if he _could_ , but he just didn’t _yet?_ She and Jake were both so bad at talking about their feelings… would this cause him to pull back?

But it was Jake, she reminded herself. Even if he didn’t feel that way about her, he was Jake. He was her Jake, the man who was attentive and present even when he struggled with emotion, the man who would do anything in the world to make her smile, the best man she knew. And there was a very high probability that she loved him. 

But if she told him that she loved him, then some unforeseen circumstances caused her to pull back in any way… What would that do to him? 

She could see that he’d been on the receiving end of that sort of thing before. She saw how he approached love, cautious in some ways, yet so vulnerable in others. 

She had to be sure. For his sake, she had to be sure. If she was wrong, if she said it too soon, then something went wrong between them and they had to call it all off… She just wanted to be sure that he would be okay. And she was all in, had no intention of ever calling things off with Jake, but in the event that it happened… She knew that he would be okay right now. But if she threw that word out there…

If she said that she loved him, but then love ended up not being enough…

Would he be able to handle that? 

She knew that he _could_. She knew he’d be fine, whether they were together in the end or not. But would he be able to move on? If he loved her, if they loved _each other_ , then came to realize that love wasn’t enough to keep them together, with Amy being added to his long list of disappointing relationships… Would he ever be able to give himself to anyone else?

She didn’t know the answer to that question. And she owed it to him to take her time in figuring her feelings out, because while she would never be able to fully predict the future, she felt that with enough time, she could probably be more sure than she was now.

She couldn’t speak for him, but her relationship with Jake was different for her than any other relationship she’d ever had before. She’d told men that she loved them before, but she’d never felt about anyone the way she felt about him. Perhaps that’s why she was so careful with this. It was so different, so intense and important and he deserved the best, deserved to be loved wholeheartedly, uninhibitedly, and she’d messed up so much in the beginning of their relationship. Maybe she just didn’t trust herself to not mess things up again. 

And if he felt the same way… If he had never felt the way he felt about her toward anyone else… If love came into the mix, and they lost that… Would he be able to recover? Would he be able to trust again? They’d worked through so many problems together throughout the two months that they’d officially been together. They’d built so much trust, so much happiness and respect and safety with one another. Would he be able to lose all of that and ever find it with someone else? Because he deserved it. He deserved to be happy, and he deserved to be loved. 

And _she_ loved him.

Right?

Love was many things to her. Her father had always repeated that one bible verse to her and her brothers when they were growing up. She could recite it in the exact voice that he would use. 

Love is patient. Love is kind. It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking. It is not easily angered. It keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. Love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. 

He’d reminded them of those words all throughout their lives. She’d stood by several brothers’ sides before their weddings, her father reciting the words and her brothers all exchanging eye rolls. _You look for these qualities in people,_ he’d always say, _and that’s how you know. When a person is right for you, when they’re worthy of your love, they’ll fit._ And yes, she rolled her eyes over it at times, too. But she carried them with her, those words in her father’s voice. 

In moments like these, all alone in her room with Jake on her mind, they came back to her. When she lined him up against those words, things felt even less clear to her. 

Jake can be patient. Through endless study sessions for a sergeant’s exam she was months away from taking, through explanations he never asked for of things he doesn’t particularly care about. Through correction after correction of his grammar. Through Kylie’s glares at him across the table at the bar when he didn’t know the answer to the trivia question that he raised his hand to answer. Through her bad days, through her relentless teasing when she could tell that he wanted her particularly badly. 

He could _also_ be impatient. On the way to crime scenes, when he knew there was a surprise coming, when they were stuck in traffic. When she’d teased him a little too much and he snapped, his grip on her wrists firm, but painless as his low voice reminded her that their safe word was lawyer, and she shouldn’t hesitate to use it. When he was waiting for his mom to pick up the phone on his third try at catching her for their weekly phone call, that little crease between his eyebrows ever present as he tapped his fingers on the counter until she chirped out a _Jake, is it Sunday again?_

Jake is kind. To her. To concerned and afraid civilians. To strangers. He’s spoken words to her so kind that she was left in stunned silence, staring back at him in awe because how could the same person who just looked into her eyes and told her that all of his days were better because she was in them, that was so soft and gentle and sweet, be the same man who fit a title of your sex tape joke into every serious moment?

Jealousy is an ugly emotion, he says. But she’d seen it written all over his face a few different times. She’d seen the insecurities long ingrained in him, things he didn’t talk about often and likely didn’t even always recognize in himself. The time they had a case with a notable crossword writer, the way he almost threw the entire case because he was trying to prove that _he_ was as smart as the man who was looking at her like she was (Jake’s description) the best crossword clue in the world. He didn’t wear envy often, but when he did, it was all he wore. And if she were being honest, though she’d prefer he never felt insecure enough to _get_ jealous, it wasn’t necessarily a look that she disliked on him, every now and then. 

Boasting. Jake Peralta was the _king_ of boasting. _Especially_ , about his work. It went hand-in-hand with his pride, something that he clung to especially in those moments of insecurity. He loved to talk about his achievements, loved to compare his career to those he looked up to, loved to tease her and their friends about different cases and where they all lined up. It was always light-hearted, always cushioned with encouragement and motivation for all of them to push to do even better, but he was definitely proud. And he should be. She was proud of him, too. 

She’d spent so much time thinking about all of this. Comparing and contrasting Jake Peralta with the set of rules that her father had ingrained in her all throughout her life. With everyone else she’d dated, it had been so simple. She definitely could tell when she _didn’t_ love someone, when love, based on those rules, wasn’t present in them. She had dated people in the past who had measured up perfectly to those words. People who never boasted, people who she had never even seen get angry. People whom she did not have even a fraction of the feelings for that she felt for Jake. 

The thing was… 

She’d never felt like this about anyone before. She had been in love before, a handful of times, but her relationship with Jake felt entirely different than anything else she’d ever been a part of. Having feelings like this—this big, this _raw_ —was scary. She wasn’t always in control, couldn’t always be.

But Jake helped her with that. He was there, encouragement and comfort offered in his arms in the moments where she’d normally be hiding in the bathroom, smoking her third cigarette of the day. He was reminders to let go, through jokes and bets and games. He was safety while simultaneously being the one constantly pushing her boundaries. He was the positive spin on every situation. Calling this love, calling this what she was getting closer and closer to being certain it was, meant that she had even more to lose. 

It was so easy for her to put this all up as a front, pretend that all she was doing was trying to protect Jake in the event that things ever went south between them. Yet if she were being honest, she’d have to point out that Jake wasn’t the only one who would need protecting. If this was love—and she thought this was love—then she’d be just as wrecked if they somehow came to lose it. 

Somewhere deep down, they both knew the words were buzzing between them, but neither of them seemed ready to pop their little happy bubble. Things were good. They didn’t need to complicate their relationship with big, scary words like _love_. They felt the way that they felt about each other, and that was enough for them. 

It was just a normal day. They’d rolled out of bed together, Jake pulling her comforter with him as he followed her out of the bedroom. She picked up her pace a little as they made it to the living room because she knew exactly what came next. She laughed into his neck as he caught her, winding his arms around her waist and wrapping her up in the wings that the comforter formed around his arms. 

One, two, three kisses, his lips never leaving her skin as he travelled from her collarbone to her lips. He had her settled comfortably on top of him, nestled into the couch in less than a minute. Her laughter was muffled by his chest as she tried to wiggle her arms free from his grasp, but he just hummed happily. He was keeping her in place, his eyes shut tight as he tried to snuggle her back to sleep. Normally she’d let him, but today they had things to do.

“Jake,” she said through her laughter, shifting against him. He hummed sleepily again, his arms staying clamped around her. “Hmm, how ever can I convince you to get up?” She asked sarcastically, listening for his breath to hitch as she rocked her hips against his slowly, repeating the motion over and over until she felt him responding. 

The next sound he made was not inspired by sleep. The low groan at the back of his throat set off a new round of giggles for her. His arms loosened around her, fingers dragging across her sides as she pushed herself up to straddle his hips. She looked down at him, regarding the soft smile his lips pressed into with fondness. He held onto her hips, his eyes on hers as he rutted against her, shifting her on his lap. “We have time?” 

She rolled her hips against his, movements slowing as he followed her curves, fingertips sliding up underneath her shorts. “I don’t know… How quick can you be?” 

He laughed, tipping her off of his lap and pressing her back into the cushions. His hands roved over her chest, still covered in the tank top she’d worn to bed. “Oh, don’t worry,” he whispered tantalizingly. “I can be quick.” 

He wasn’t exactly as quick as she’d meant, but they were both collapsed in each other’s arms after about fifteen minutes, and she didn’t have a single complaint. She laughed softly, pressing a kiss underneath his jaw. “You should wake me up like that every morning.” 

His responding laugh shook her as his chest rumbled. “Wake you up like that? Before _work?”_

She shrugged, pulling the comforter off of him as she pushed herself off of the couch. “I bet if we tried hard enough, we could get you under five minutes.” 

He scoffed, following behind her. He pulled the comforter up behind her so she didn’t trip over the edge as she turned the corner. “Oh, I could give you under five minutes.” He wound an arm around her waist, pressing a kiss onto her neck and laughing as she hummed. He twisted around her, slipping past her to push into her bedroom, making his way straight to the closet—where more than a few of his clothes had taken up residence. “But where would the fun in that be?” 

And it was just a normal day. They went about getting ready to run their errands for the day, a little list written out in Amy’s neat handwriting as their guide. She didn’t think about how when she met Jake, he had always seemed so impulsive and so ready to do anything without a second thought, regardless of the consequences. She didn’t think about the way that now, while he still had spontaneous moments and times when he rushed into action without thinking, there were so many more moments that were full of quiet pondering, full of asking her for her thoughts on whatever was on his mind. She didn’t think about Jake’s new tendency to take a step back from a situation to think things through more in depth, to come up with a plan of attack before simply acting. 

She didn’t think about how before, all of her days were full of planning and preparing and weighing options. She didn’t think about how, before she met Jake, her days were long and unremarkable. She was professional, successful, and, honestly, a little on the ordinary side. She didn’t think about how there were moments now when she’d allow her feelings to get the best of her, something that _never_ used to happen. She was still just as professional and successful, but her life felt so much more full with him in it. The way that she sometimes relinquished control of the things around her, suggested or followed along with a spur of the moment activity… none of that was on her mind. 

She wasn’t thinking about her father’s words, or her past relationships, or even love at all. She stared out the window, mindlessly humming along to whatever was on the radio as Jake drove them to her favorite little market. 

There was no part of her that was thinking about how she and Jake make each other better every day. 

It was just a normal day. 

Jake cursed under his breath when someone ran over his foot with their shopping cart, but he smiled politely and murmured forgiveness to them when they apologized. He had to ask an employee about an item that was in a new aisle, and instead of just smiling and helping them out, the kid looked Jake in the eye and said, “What, you can’t read? There’s signs all over this place, why don’t you use them?” 

Amy squeezed his hand as he steered away from the kid, gritting his teeth and grumbling about how _if the fucking bread was in the aisle marked bread, do you think I’d be asking about it?_

It was a normal day, albeit a little more frustrating for Jake than most of their days were. They walked through the market together, Amy rubbing comforting little circles on the back of his hand with her thumb, working their way through their grocery list. The last thing on their list was almond milk. The store was mostly empty, and she found herself surprised that Jake wasn’t using the wide aisle on the way to the back corner of the store as a makeshift Mario Kart track. Instead of pushing off and jumping on the back of the cart (maybe saying _Ames, throw a banana in front of me, let’s see if I slip!_ and pretending not to notice when she rolled her eyes), he just held her hand and kept walking. He must be _really_ frustrated. 

When they got close enough to the place where the almond milk typically was, he let go of her hand, leaving the cart with her to go retrieve it. 

“Well, that’s just fucking great.” 

She was standing a few feet behind him, trying her hardest not to laugh at him. He had his arms crossed, staring at the empty refrigerator where the almond milk _should be_ , but wasn’t. He may as well have been stomping his foot. His sigh echoed through the abandoned corner of the store.

She hadn’t been thinking about it. Out of absolutely nowhere, it hit her like a train. 

She loved him. For sure, without a single doubt, she was in love with Jake Peralta. 

She had loved him all this time. For weeks, for months, maybe even since before they actually started dating. She had been trying to convince herself that her feelings weren’t real because they were scary. She was afraid of changing their dynamic that seemed to be working so well. She was afraid of saying the words that would make their relationship more serious, that would give her the power to hurt him, give him the power to hurt her. But in this moment, it just hit her, this undeniable truth that somehow felt so big and new, yet so unequivocal, as if it had been a piece of her for her entire life, and she was only just now really seeing it. 

Jake Peralta was frustrated in a grocery store, and she was helplessly in love with him. 

She knew. And now that she knew, it was bubbling up inside of her, begging to come out, and for the first time, that familiar voice that usually prevented her from making a fool of herself didn’t have a single thing to say. 

“Hey, Jake?” 

He turned to look at her, frustration still clear on his features. He raised his eyebrows, a sharp, silent _what?_ She didn’t say anything for a moment. His eyebrows were furrowed. He gestured to the empty refrigerator, turning back to look at it again. “It’s not like I can ask that kid if they moved it, he’s just gonna tell me to _read the signs—”_

“I love you.” 

His head snapped back toward her. His eyebrows drew together, then immediately raised again, shock making its way across his features before his entire expression softened. She watched the range of emotions flash through him, the shock melted into confusion, then realization, leaving nothing but adoration in its wake. His eyes flickered between hers, this look of vulnerability washing over him, creasing his eyebrows once again. They were standing in the refrigerator aisle at the grocery store, their eyes set on each other, a moment that on the outside looked so _ordinary_. 

He laughed softly, that breathless sort of huff of laughter that he sometimes did. “You do?” 

She nodded. “Yeah. I do.” She smiled, a similar laugh escaping her lips. “I love you, Jake.” 

They were the most beautiful words he had ever heard in his life. And he knew all the words to all of Taylor Swift’s songs. 

And yet, try as he might, words failed him. The disconnect between his brain and his tongue was too vast to overcome, and before he could even register what he was doing, the words left his mouth. The wrong words. 

“Noice. Smort.” 

She nodded, her lips pressing into a quick, tight line. Almost imperceptibly, her eyes flashed away, a bit of awkwardness between them even as they were so close to one another. 

He shook his head. 

No. 

He’d been spending all of this time trying to find the right words to tell her what she really meant to him, when maybe the right words had been in front of him all this time. He stepped a little closer to her. Grocery store forgotten, he rested his hand on her waist, his other hand moving to tip her face toward his, still a few inches away.

“I love you, too.” 

The slowest, sweetest smile stretched across her lips. “Yeah?” 

He nodded back, his grin mirroring hers. He didn’t have an ounce of uncertainty. “Yeah.”

He pulled her in for a kiss, soft and slow. She moved back almost imperceptibly, her lips brushing against his as she whispered to him, the words sounding full and bright through her laughter. “I love you.” 

“I love _you.”_ He pulled her back into another kiss, both too happy and caught up in one another to even care about where they were. When that kid from before cat-called behind them, they didn’t even pay him any attention. Jake pulled out of the kiss, taking a second to smile at her before pulling her against him in the tightest bear hug he could muster, and even when he was crushing her ribs, she couldn’t stop her carefree laughter. 

After that, they made up for every time he’d contemplated saying those words to her over the last few weeks. Their fingers still intertwined, walking along the aisles at the market, she’d lean into his neck, and he could feel the whispers touching his skin. _I love you, Jake._

“I love you, Ames.” 

In the car, he glanced over at her, his smile so wide that it hurt his cheeks. “I love you.” He laughed lightly when her smile spread across her face. “So cool to say that out loud.” 

She quirked an eyebrow at him, and he knew without a doubt that he was definitely caught. Instead of pushing the matter, she just laced her fingers with his on the center console. “I love you, too.” 

“Hey,” she murmured as she handed him the last item to put into her fridge. He paused, cocking an eyebrow at her. “Love you.”

He pressed a kiss onto her cheek, his fingers brushing against hers as he took the carton of eggs from her. “Love you more.” 

Later, a smile spreading across his lips and interrupting him as he interspersed wet kisses across her neck. His soft, breathy declaration of words he never wanted to stop saying. “I love you so much.” 

“I love you,” she whimpered, and he hadn’t been aware that he could enjoy hearing those words more than he already had. He wanted to test it out, to hear every possible way that she could say those three words. He wanted to taste the words on her lips, to feel them on his skin, to be surrounded by them for the rest of his life. 

“I love you,” he hummed, muffling the words with his lips pressed to her inner thigh. 

“Jake, you know I love hearing those words, but if you don’t—” She sighed as he put his tongue to what she would call an equally good use. “Mmmm, I love you, too. I love you,” her fingers slid into place in his hair, pulling him to exactly where she needed him, “fuck.”

He traced out the words with the tip of his tongue every time she said them, her orgasm a clumsy thread of whispered _I love you_ s, his name sprinkled between the declarations. He couldn’t believe they’d waited this long to say it. There was no room for anything but love and happiness inside him. He couldn’t stop smiling, didn’t want to stop smiling, couldn’t believe that this was his life, sitting up against Amy Santiago’s headboard, their eye contact saying the words even when their mouths weren’t as she sank down on him. 

His hands lingered on her hips, sliding up to trace her spine. They were always so in sync. He pulled her closer, shifting her against him. Their kiss was languid, no urgency detected between them, just eager hands pulling closer, slow tongues tracing paths from lips to jaws to necks. Amy adjusted her legs, sighing in time with his groan as he shifted deeper into her. 

“Fuck—” Jake paused to press a kiss to her collarbone, humming where his lips pressed against her skin. “God, Ames, I love you—fuck, love you so much.”

“I love you,” she whispered against his lips. 

He’d lost count of how many times they’d said by the time they finished. It wouldn’t be surprising at all to him if he learned that they’d broken a world record for it, but he never got tired of saying it and absolutely _never_ got tired of hearing it. He didn’t think it was even possible to get tired of hearing her say that she loved him. If that was the only thing he could hear for the rest of his life, he’d be happy. 

Jake had made a lot of mistakes in various parts of his life. He was a good person, but he was no stranger to making wrong choices. There were times when he’d been a bad friend, times where he’d messed up relationships with really great people, even times when he’d fucked up with Amy. 

But he had to have done something right. He’d done something right enough to be the person that she loved. He was in love with Amy Santiago, and she loved him back. They were wrapped up in her sheets, her head resting on his chest while they ignored all of their plans for the day because they were in love, and suddenly that was all that mattered. Just for the rest of the day, that would be all that mattered. 

Tomorrow, they’d go back to work. They’d have to pick up the slack on all of the errands they didn’t run, they’d fall back into all of their cases, they’d go back to the normalcy of their everyday lives. But tomorrow, they’d still be in love. Tomorrow and every day for what he guessed would be the rest of his life, he was in love with Amy Santiago. It wouldn’t always be the only thing that mattered, but for now, it was. 

“I’m, uh…” Jake began, breaking their comfortable silence. Amy shifted on his chest so she could see his face. “I’ve… _been_ in love with you.” 

A slow smile stretched across her face. “You have?” 

“Yeah.” He smiled back, but his eyes quickly strayed to where his fingers traced against her shoulder. “For… weeks, at least.” He swallowed. “Longer, I think.” 

His eyes flashed back to hers. She pressed her palm to his jaw, pulling his face to hers, then pressed a soft kiss to his lips. “Me too.” 

Somehow everything had changed and nothing had changed all at once. 

Amy pressed her lips to his one more time, then returned her head to the crook of his neck. 

Jake wondered, for what was probably the hundredth time and what definitely wouldn’t be the last time, how he could possibly feel more sure about her in this moment than he did in the moment before.

And if he spent the rest of his life trying to figure that out… 

He’d call it a life well lived.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> anyways listen to black butterflies & deja vu, the ultimate pre/early peraltiago song thank you. ¨̮ 
> 
> this was almost your ending!!! what do you think ¨̮
> 
> love u guys


	21. to be wherever you are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title from Hold You Here by This Wild Life. 
> 
> _Just try to breathe slow,_   
>  _Make both of your lungs full,_   
>  _I’ll follow my heart to be wherever you are._
> 
> _We’ll lessen the distance,_   
>  _Stretched out between us,_   
>  _I’ll follow my heart to be wherever you are._
> 
> _If I could just hold you here forever,_   
>  _Hold you here, I'll never need more._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi!!!! It's been forever but I'm here!!!
> 
> @ Anon thanks for checking in yesterday, it gave me the motivation to work through the last 3k of this chapter that I'd been struggling with. Appreciate all of you. ¨̮ 
> 
> V important thing here: there are only three planned chapters left for this fic!!! you guys know me so you know that's subject to change, but at the moment i'm pretty confident that it'll be three more chapters after this one. Just wanted to give you a heads up!
> 
> soooo sorry for the delay on this chapter. ¨̮ it's needlessly smutty and i'm hoping it's worth it and meets expectations. 
> 
> https://www.etsy.com/listing/795331143/lee-sport-crop-top-mets-21-delgado?ga_order=most_relevant&ga_search_type=all&ga_view_type=gallery&ga_search_query=mets+crop+top&ref=sr_gallery-1-3&frs=1 this is the shirt i'm picturing for one of the scenes if anybody cares??? 
> 
> anyways enjoy!

For someone who was so flexible and quick on his feet, Jake had never really been too fond of change. He wasn’t drawn to routine, by any means. Spontaneity was as much a part of him as orange soda, which, he theorized, probably made up approximately sixty-two percent of his body (maybe closer to forty percent now that Amy was making him drink _water._ Ugh, the things he did for love.). The monotony of a routine drove him insane. He needed something beyond a daily schedule to keep his attention. It was just that he liked for the general things, the big things, to remain mostly the same. 

Home, for example. He’d lived in New York his entire life. He’d known people who had craved an escape from the city from a young age, but he never had. This city built him, it was the background to all of his memories, and he had no desire to get away from it. While his life had seen many changes over the course of the years, Brooklyn was always there. There had been many times when he wasn’t sure what his future would hold, but he always knew that Brooklyn would be the backdrop. 

He was in no rush to climb the ranks past detective. He knew when he joined the academy that he wanted to be a detective, and while he was theoretically interested in and could see himself going other places within law enforcement, being a sergeant or a captain never particularly interested him. He wanted to be on the scene, investigating and problem solving _always_. He didn’t want to delegate the jobs to other people and oversee the cool cases, he wanted to live them. To _solve them_. He wanted in on the action. His days were packed full of change, sometimes chaotic and stressful, but always interesting, and that’s how he liked it. 

It wasn’t that change was a bad thing, exactly. Change could be great. In some circumstances, he welcomed change. When he’d bought his first car, for example. That was a spur of the moment decision, a chance encounter that brought him to the vehicle that held such a special place in his heart. He’d accepted the promotion from uniformed officer to detective without a second thought. That was undoubtedly a change, and while there were many moments during his first year as a detective when he felt a bit out of his element, there was never a moment of regret. 

So _change_ wasn’t a bad thing, in and of itself. It was just that sometimes change brought bad things with it. His mom getting a new job when he was in middle school wasn’t a bad thing, but that job meant that he saw her even less than he saw her before. Changing precincts in the middle of his first year as a beat cop wasn’t bad, but his first beat at the nine-nine was the worst beat he’d _ever_ had—and he still stood by that. Speaking of monotony, by the way, beat cop is just about as monotonous as it gets. Imagine taking a job that was already awful and somehow making it progressively worse… and that was his first beat at the nine-nine.

He wasn’t _opposed_ to change, per se. It was more that he was _resistant_ to change. 

Which is what made it all the more interesting when life changes regarding Amy Santiago came so easily to him. 

It wasn’t exactly that this all just came easily to him, he supposed. Quite the contrary, he’d actually spent many a night (and, whether he knew it or not, he would spend many more in the future) thinking about some of these changes, but when the time really came, he just knew. There was never any real resistance when it came to her. 

Things just happened so organically between them. 

The change that led them here, for example. 

—

He walked into her bedroom, his eyes tracing approvingly up the back of her legs. 

She’d been some variety of this image all day, but if he had to rank all of her studying positions, this one would go pretty high on the list. She was stretched across her bed, her bare legs leading his eyes up to her favorite underwear, the soft, thin, navy ones that felt like she was barely wearing anything at all—the ones that led his mind to unmentionable places when he just caught a quick glimpse of them, and that stole almost every thought out of his head when he caught her lying in bed, all cute and absorbed in her book, her legs comfortably spread, ankles crossed behind her. 

She was wearing that Mets tee, the crop top that Gina gave her to wear to the first game he ever took her to. She didn’t actually wear it to the game _(a crop top, Gina? It’s a baseball game, not a frat party.)_ , but she did wear it around her apartment sometimes. She put it on when she wanted his attention, because she knew that the second he looked up from whatever he was doing and noticed her in it, it would be the only thing on his mind until he got her out of it. Insane, because it looked so good on her, but _god_ he loved taking it off of her. His eyes followed the dip in her spine, tracing it to where it was hidden underneath her shirt. 

Her hair was tossed up in a bun, and he could see the arm of her glasses peeking out where it rested on her ear. She shifted, stretching out a little further. Her shirt rode up a little higher, and he clung to every centimeter of skin that it exposed. She groaned in frustration, and he just couldn’t take it anymore. 

“God,” he murmured softly. She gasped, startled by his presence behind her, and curled onto her side to look at him. He shook his head, his expression serious. “It’s not fair that you’re this hot when you’re not even trying.” 

She laughed dismissively. “Shut up.” 

“No.” He shook his head, walking further into the room. “It’s ridiculous. I came in here for something, but I saw you looking like this and I don’t even remember what I needed. Like _where_ did all your clothes go? You can’t just let me walk into a room with you in bed like _this_ and expect me to hold it together, Ames.” 

Her hips stirring familiarly tore his attention away from her face until she started speaking. “It’s like a hundred degrees, Jake.” 

“The AC is on so high that it’s practically winter in here. Actually, I think I was coming in here to get a hoodie before you so rudely interrupted me by being irresistible.” 

She rolled her eyes, ignoring his latter comment. “You know I get hot when I study.” 

“I mean, I know you get hot, but I didn’t know you got _hot.”_

She laughed. “Shut _up.”_ She shifted again, rolling back onto her stomach and refocusing on her book. “I just get so stressed, and then it just affects me all over. I didn’t wanna turn the air conditioning on even higher, so I just changed into—”

“Changed _into?_ You mean out of?” 

_“Jake!”_

“I’m not complaining.” He crawled into bed next to her, his palm slipping its way under the back of her shirt as he pressed kisses to the fabric on her shoulder. 

“Babe, c’mon.” She leaned into him, but she didn’t tear her attention away from her book. “I can’t. Have to study.” 

“Amy.” He tapped his fingers on her back, as if that would give him her undivided attention. “You haven’t even eaten a real meal today. You should take a break.”

“I don’t have time for a break.” 

He scoffed. “The test is still months away. If you don’t want to have sex that’s fine, but you can take a break to eat—”

“I want to,” she interrupted, finally looking over at him. “It’s not that I don’t want to.” Her intense eye contact made his stomach do a weird flippy thing that he tried to ignore. “It’s just that I have my studying time strictly scheduled and if I sway from my plans then I’ll miss out on time that I could be using to make sure I’m really prepared for the sergeant’s exam.” 

“C’mon.” His fingers traced up and down her spine, those featherlight touches that he knew drove her crazy. “You’re already prepared, Ames. And you have months to keep studying. Come eat something.” 

“I’m not prepared _enough_ , and I have one more hour until I can stop studying.” 

He groaned quietly, but she didn’t look up at him. The sound of a page turning cut into the silence of the room, and he rolled his eyes. 

“Okay, fine. I’m just gonna make you something and bring it in here then.” 

This time she did turn her head to shoot him a glare. “I’m not eating in bed.” 

“Oh my god. Then come out and study at the table.” 

“How many times have we been on stakeouts where we’ve gone hours without eating a real meal? I think I can last another hour, Jake.” 

He leaned his head on her shoulder, finally accepting defeat. “Can I at least hang out with you while you study?” 

She shrugged, his head tilting up with her shoulder. “As long as you’re quiet.” 

He kept his head on her shoulder, quietly skimming over what she was reading. Studying for the sergeant’s exam Amy didn’t joke—if he wasn’t quiet, she’d send him out of the room. It had happened before, and with the exam still being a few months out, he was certain that it would happen again in the future. 

Today, however, it wouldn’t. He remained silent, his fingertips trailing back and forth along her warm skin. He shifted off of her shoulder, adjusting and snuggling in against her side. He could’ve fallen asleep like that, actually had his eyes closed and was thinking about how comfortable he was, the repetitive sound of Amy turning pages one that wasn’t entirely unfamiliar to him, when something caught his attention. 

He’d stopped moving his fingers, and she was rhythmically moving against him to encourage him to continue touching her. He smiled to himself. It was a move that was so predictably her, even when she was supposedly entirely focused on something else. He waited it out another moment, and sure enough, her movements became a little more insistent. When he still didn’t move, she bumped her hip gently against his chest. 

“Jake?” 

“Hmmm?” He hummed. 

“What are you doing?” 

“Being quiet.” 

She tensed for half a second—a move that he’d learned meant she was rolling her eyes at him even though he couldn’t see it. She didn’t say anything, but her wiggling against him resumed. 

Now he’d spent a lot of time with Amy. He’d spent a lot of time with her in the year that they’d known each other before they started dating, and he’d probably spent even more time than that with her in the six months that they’d been together. He didn’t want to be too cocky, but he was pretty certain that he had her body language down to a science. 

She could say that she just wanted to focus on her studying all she wanted, but her hips were saying something entirely different. Jake had faced many a sleepy, snuggly, _just hold me_ Amy. He was no stranger to the stress emanating off of the Amy that just needed a backrub, that just wanted his hands to be rubbing comfort into her and tension out. 

But _this_ Amy… 

This Amy was trouble. This Amy was pleading, bargaining for his attention through practiced movements he’d been paying attention to for a year and a half now. This Amy knew exactly what she wanted and _exactly_ how to get him to give it to her. He’d seen this Amy more times than he could possibly count (in truth, he’d seen most facets of Amy more times than he could possibly count, and while he loved them all equally, this one definitely had a special place in his heart). 

But he’d _never_ seen this particular Amy in the middle of a study session. 

So perhaps his Amy radar wasn’t as honed in as he’d thought it had been. Perhaps he was having an off day. Or maybe… 

Maybe he knew exactly what he was talking about.

So it was with a little bit of mischief and a lot of curiosity that he experimentally slid his hand down the slope of her back. His fingers splayed out across the small of her back, dragging lower until his palm was met with that soft, barely-there fabric. He squeezed gently, and sure enough, that familiar, soft hum left her lips. 

He was careful to stay quiet, varying his pressure as he repeated the motion. He pressed warm kisses to her ribs, his lips never leaving her skin as he trailed across her side. It started off innocent enough, but then she made that _sound_. God, that sound. That breathy sort of moan, that impatient sound she made when he teased her that shot straight to his cock every time, and then all his innocence was replaced with intention. His fingers slipped under the thin fabric, his palm met with her soft, warm skin as he grabbed a handful. He dragged his fingers dangerously close to where she clearly wanted him, but he was careful to keep that layer of fabric between them as he adjusted his grip. 

“I love your butt,” he murmured quietly when he was finally sure that she was distracted enough that she wasn’t going to send him away for talking—even if only because that meant he’d stop touching her. 

She whimpered his name more than she said it, and he had to make a genuine effort to stop himself from tugging her underwear off at the sound. Instead he just hummed and hoped that it looked like he was outwardly keeping his cool more than he actually was. 

He shifted a bit, his hand still adjusting its grip when he started pressing kisses to the back of her left thigh. He started just above the bend in her knee, and she let out a rough exhale as his teeth scraped along her inner thigh. He kissed and nipped and licked his way up until he was pressing slow, warm kisses along the edge of her underwear. 

He laughed quietly, adjusting to fall between her legs when she spread them a little wider for him. His hand strayed from its place on her ass, his thumb moving down to brush against fabric as he continued kissing his way across her thighs. She was a mess in no time—all shaky sighs and decisive hips, rocking closer to his touch. 

His laugh came out a little darker this time. “You okay, babe? You seem a little distracted.” 

She swallowed. “Mm—mhm, I’m good.”

“You wanna put your book away and we can—”

“No—mmmm, no, I can—I can do both.” 

He laughed again. “Can you?” He hummed, his voice thick with desire in that way he knew really affected her. “‘Cause I can feel how wet you are for me.” 

She seemed to be struggling to answer, so he stopped touching her. She took a shaky breath, sounding just a bit more confident without his hands on her. “I can do both.” 

He nudged her thighs apart a little further with the end of his nose. “Prove it.” 

“H—” She gasped when he pressed a quick, sharp bite to her inner thigh. “How?” 

“Lemme quiz you, I guess. While I’m touching you.” 

She scoffed, and he made a little incredulous sound in response. He propped himself up on his elbows, removing his hands from her completely. 

“Okay, first question. How many times have I quizzed you on all of this?” 

“Jake, take this seriously.” 

He made a loud buzzer noise, and she jumped. “Wrong answer. The answer is twenty-six, but I also would have accepted either _more than enough to be able to quiz me_ or _enough that you could probably pass the sergeant’s exam yourself.”_

“Okay, _now_ you’re just being ridiculous.” 

“I’d make a _fantastic_ sergeant, thank you very much.” He rolled his eyes pointedly when she looked over her shoulder at him. “Look, are you down to prove it, or not? Because I’m pretty sure you can’t do both.”

“Okay, hold on. It doesn’t seem fair that you get to quiz me and just try to trip me up. Don’t I get some sort of reward for correct answers?” 

“Well, look at you negotiating your release—literally.” He laughed when she shot him another annoyed glance. “Fine, you can have rewards, but that also means you get punishments for every wrong answer.” 

“What are we talking, Peralta?” 

He pressed a few more kisses across the back of her thigh as he thought. “I don’t know… When you answer right, I’ll set a timer and you get a full minute and half with no questions, just touching. If you answer wrong, I’ll work on making it progressively harder for you to focus. Fair?” 

She swallowed. “Yeah. Fair.” 

“Cool, cool, cool. You ready?” 

“Yes.” 

“Great.” He brushed his fingers teasingly across the back of her thighs. “Okay, I guess we’ll start easy. What does SAP stand for?”

“SNEU, anti-crime, peddler.” 

He slipped his phone out of his pocket, pulling it up to bring up the timer. He set it for a minute and a half. “Maybe I should’ve started with, like, thirty seconds. A minute and a half between questions isn’t a super effective study method.” 

Her reply was simply wiggling her hips at him. He laughed softly, started the timer, then set to work. He was careful to keep his touches light, focusing more on kissing her thighs than on pointedly touching her. She hummed, a frustrated sigh escaping her when the timer beeped. 

“Okay. Next question…” He trailed off, thinking. “CEO?” 

“Commanding, executive officer, operations coordinator.” 

He reset the timer and repeated his process, his touches not quite enough to be even remotely satisfying. This time when the timer went off, she groaned. 

“Jake, c’mon.” 

“What?” He laughed when she looked over and rolled her eyes at him. “I never said _how_ I was going to touch you, just that I would touch you for a minute and a half each time. I’m doing my part, Ames.” She scoffed, seemingly focusing back on her book. “WEBS?” 

“Weapons, emergencies, burglaries, serious crimes.” 

“I also would have accepted a spiderman joke.” He set his timer, tossing it on the bed and entirely bypassing his teasing. Instead, he slipped his hand between her legs, his thumb rubbing slow, tight circles. She stilled under his touch, but he watched with a smirk as her head tipped forward, her forehead resting against the pages of her book. 

“Okay,” he mumbled, clearing his throat when the timer went off and reluctantly pulling his hand away from her. She straightened again, squirming a little at the loss of his touch. “Desk officer will question arresting officers regarding UDEC. What’s UDEC?”

“Use of force, details of occurrence, evidence discovered, charge.” 

“Ooh, _so_ close.” 

She turned to make a face at him. “That’s what UDEC stands for.” 

“No, actually, it’s not. E stands for evidence _re_ covered, not evidence _dis_ covered.”

“Oh my god, that’s basically the same thing.” 

“Mhm, but basically isn’t actually, is it Ames?” She sighed indignantly. “Good news is that we don’t have to wait a full minute and a half for the next question. Bad news is you’re losing these.” 

He tugged her underwear down, and she adjusted to help him slip them down her thighs and off of her completely. He took a moment to look at her, laid out in front of him with nothing but that Mets t-shirt on. He grabbed a handful of her ass again. 

“I thought we weren’t going to wait a full minute and a half for the next question?” She teased. 

“Jeez, a guy can’t admire his girlfriend’s butt for a second?” She wiggled beneath his fingertips, and he wondered momentarily if this was going to be more distracting for her or for himself. “Alright. SAD?” 

“Servicing RMP with desk officer permission, answering call, directed by competent authority.” 

“Mhmmm, that’s my girl,” he murmured. He smirked to himself, fully aware that that little bit of praise would go a long way with her. 

He already knew how wet she was, but that did nothing to stop the little growl that slipped out of him when he touched her with nothing between them. She arched her hips toward him a bit, giving him an even better view, and he suddenly hated his timer, was tired of teasing her, wanted nothing more than to keep going. He had just teased the tip of his index finger inside of her when the timer went off, and they both groaned in response. He pulled his finger away, but instead of starting with the next question, he moved back to kissing her inner thigh. She didn’t protest, humming when his tongue dragged across her slowly, sucking her skin between his teeth when he got to the place where her leg met her body. He knew his hot breath was affecting her, and _god_ she looked so inviting, but he resisted with another little groan. He shifted on the bed, providing himself with the tiniest bit of friction. 

“Fuck, you’re hot.” 

“Next question,” she replied impatiently. “Please.” 

“Mhm, yeah…” He shook his head, trying to clear it enough to come up with a feasible question. “Uh, CATP?”

She hummed when he brushed his fingers against her. “Uhm, command clerk, attendant, telephone switchboard operator, patrol wagon operator.” 

“Told you you’re ready for this exam.” 

“These are just the acronyms,” she replied. “They’re easy.” 

“So you’re saying you want me to get harder?” 

“Start the timer, Jake.” 

“Mhm!” 

After dropping the phone on the bed, he went right to work. He crooked his middle finger inside her, resisting the urge to twist his wrist in the way he knew she really liked. Even without it, she was a mess. He worked to coordinate his movements, his thumb teasing her clit as he rhythmically worked her with his fingers. 

“God, when was the last time I made you come for me like this?” His voice was all low and gravelly, and he wasn’t even doing it for her benefit. He _wanted her_ , and he couldn’t pretend he didn’t—even for the sake of teasing. Even if he thought he could, he had a painfully hard reminder trapped between his body and the mattress.

She was being more vocal than she had been with any of his other touching, but she breathed through it to murmur back a heated response. “You couldn’t make me come in a minute and a half if you _tried.”_

And he knew the tone. It ignited something in him, something mingling with the flames of desire that were already burning across his nervous system. It was a challenge. And he was _so_ tempted to show her how wrong she was. He knew her body, he could _totally_ make her come in a minute and half—he was sure of it.

He laughed softly, pulling his fingers away when the timer went off. “Ames, I’m definitely down to prove that I can make you come in a minute and a half some other time, but right now _you’re_ proving things, not me. I mean, except me proving that I’m right about you not being able to focus on studying while I fuck you, that is.” 

She groaned, and he laughed again. “WDSCO.”

Her hips stilled where they were rocking toward him, one of his hands pressed firmly to the back of her thigh to keep her range of motion down. “Uhm… Weapons, detection, service operator, commanding, observation?” 

Jake’s laughter rumbled through him. “I completely made that acronym up, it’s nothing.” 

She scoffed. “You can’t trick me into getting questions wrong.” 

“I didn’t trick you at all, I said an acronym and instead of saying that’s not even in the material, you tried to make something up. They put fake acronyms in multiple choice tests all the time, babe. I’m just trying to prepare you.” 

She sighed, then started shifting and pulling at her shirt. 

“Hey, what are you doing?” 

She looked back at him, an eyebrow raised. “Taking off my shirt?” 

“Do _not_ take that shirt off, Amy.” She slowly pulled her arm back through her sleeve, adjusting her shirt where she’d pulled it up her back and looking at him expectantly. “I said your punishment would be something that makes it harder for you to focus.” 

“Okay…” She craned over her shoulder to look directly at him, her lashes fluttering against her cheeks as she blinked. He smiled at her, all confused looking with her too big glasses slipping a little too low. “So what is it?” 

“Well I _guess,”_ she whimpered when he worked his finger back into her, “I’m just gonna have to make it a little harder for you to focus.” 

She hummed, and he could hear the smile in her voice. He’d raised the stakes. This was a part of their dynamic that they both fell into so easily. They always spurred each other on, the teasing and competition always somehow bringing them closer, making things even more interesting between them. They were always eager to bring things up a notch, neither of them ever ready to back down. 

“SPUD?”

“Hmmm, what?” 

Jake laughed, his hand moving slow and steady. “Next question, Ames. What’s SPUD stand for?” 

“Oh. Mmmm, uh, supe—supervisors in uniform, police commissioner or deputy… US flag, desk when enter—mmmm, entering.” 

He already had the timer ready for her. He knew she’d get that one right. So it was without warning that his slow movements became so much quicker. She let out a surprised moan, his own responding sound following. Each second pushed his self-restraint a little further, but he just closed his eyes, clenched his jaw, and breathed through the hunger building inside him.

He laughed softly, leaning to press a kiss onto her hip as he touched her, intent on keeping his voice low. “Good job, babe. You're so smart.” He groaned when she pushed closer to him at the praise. “Fuck, I wish I could see your face. You look so good when I touch you like this.” 

She was getting close when the timer went off, and he immediately returned to his slow, steady, distraction pace. They repeated the exact same process for the next two questions, her protests getting more frustrated each time he returned to the slow pace.

Her voice was all breathy, and it made him angle his wrist just to hear the sound he knew she’d make. 

“No, no, no,” she whispered when he slowed down again for the third time. “Faster, please.” 

Her hips rocked toward him a little faster to accentuate her desire. He held her still with his other hand, murmuring his disapproval. 

“Those aren’t the rules, Ames. Distraction’s a punishment.” 

“Okay, okay, next question.” 

“What are the approved locations for taking a meal?” 

“No.”

His hand stilled, and she whined. “What?” 

“I said no.” 

“No is your answer?”

“Am I right, or not?” 

He chuckled. “Take this seriously, _Amy.”_

“I answered the question wrong, Jake. Distraction’s a punishment, right?” 

“Fair enough _I guess.”_ He eased another finger into her, and her response was immediate. She rocked forward, her hands coming up to tug the hair tie out of her hair. She ran her fingers through it for a moment, and Jake gave her a minute to adjust to his new distraction before he asked the next question. 

“Alright, what’s RIPE?” 

“Mmmm, I don’t know.” 

He quirked an eyebrow, his hand hesitating for a second. “I mean, if you don’t even try to answer the question, does that really count as getting it wrong? Or is that just proving that you can’t do both?” 

_“Jake,”_ she murmured. He took a deep breath, shaking his head as if that would shake her whining his name out of his memory. “I don’t—mmm, _fuck_ —I don’t remember. It’s… it’s recovered property, intoxicated or incapacitated, uh… prisoner, and EDP.” 

Jake clicked his tongue. “Sorry, Ames. That’s wrong.” 

“It’s—how is that wrong?” 

“Intoxicated or incapacitated _person.”_ He corrected. “I guess I’m gonna have to speed up.” 

“God, I love you.” The words trailed off into a moan, and Jake had never wanted to throw a game so bad in his life. 

He pressed a soft kiss to the back of her thigh, smiling against her skin when her little sounds started becoming more regular at the change. She gripped the sheet with the hand that wasn’t still holding her book open. “I love you, too. Now what’s CLINT?” 

“The holidays,” she replied automatically. “Christmas, Labor Day, Inde—” She broke off on a breathy moan. “Independence Day, New Year’s Day, and Thanksgiving.” 

The sound she made when he pulled his fingers away from her was actually pitiful. She was probably seconds from complaining or begging him to continue when he lifted up her hips, settling underneath her. He started the timer, then tossed the phone away from him. She gasped as his tongue swirled across her, his fingers returning to their previous task. 

Almost immediately, she tangled her fingers through his hair. She tilted him to where she wanted him, her fingers tightening in his hair when they found the perfect angle. He hummed against her skin, repeating the sound when her hips started grinding closer to the sensation. There was something about the way she was using him, holding him in place and just grinding closer, gripping his hair, each sound she made urging him to try that much harder. 

He wasn’t entirely sure when he went from proving Amy wrong to simply caring about nothing more than making her come, but when the timer started going off, he knocked his phone off the bed in his haste to silence it and keep going. He had her so close and all he wanted was to get her there. He angled his wrist, twisting and pressing deeper and pulling her closer and before he knew it, she was shaking around him. 

The sounds she was making were muffled by her thighs on either side of his head, but he got the idea. He carried her through it, his movements slowing down as she relaxed into him. His free hand trailed back and forth over her hip. He pressed slow kisses to the inside of her thighs as he adjusted to get out from underneath her. 

He wiped his mouth with the heel of his palm and smiled to himself as he sat up, his desire almost entirely forgotten as he looked over at his girlfriend. She was leaned down, her arm pressed to the middle of her still-open book so she didn’t lose her page. Her glasses were still on, despite her eyes being closed, though they were slightly askew as she relaxed into the bed and let her breath slowly return to a normal rate.

He loved her. 

_God_ , he loved her. 

And he _wanted her_ , but he couldn’t wipe the smile off of his face. It hit him for a second, how cool it was to have somebody that he loved so much that—even when she was in front of him looking like this, even when he was _this_ hard—sex wasn’t even close to the most important thing between them. He licked his fingers clean. When they first met, sex was the only thing between them. Now, as he carefully removed her glasses, reaching across the bed to grab her bookmark to make sure he didn’t lose her page in her book, then shifting to set both the book and the glasses on her bedside table, their relationship had grown to be so much more than just physical. Quite a few of his past relationships only survived because of the sex, but what he had with Amy was so much more than that. He laid next to her, gently pulling her closer until she rolled onto her side, her face immediately snuggling into the crook of his neck. 

“I love you,” he murmured into her hair. 

She shifted a bit, feeling around on the bed. Her phone screen lit up behind him. He felt the phone land on the bed again, then she craned her head up to press a chaste kiss to his lips. “I love you, too. But I have like fifteen minutes of studying left.” 

Jake groaned. “Babe, just relax a little. The world isn’t gonna end if you stop studying fifteen minutes early.” He pressed a kiss onto her shoulder where her shirt was slipping off. “Just let me hold you.”

She shook her head, her fingers weaving into his hair to direct his lips back to hers. “What’s the next question, Jake?” 

“Oh my god, you’re insatiable.” He laughed against her lips. 

She smiled, pausing to give him a lazy kiss before she replied. “I’m not.” His eyes slipped shut as she slid her hand down his body. “I just want you. And I _think,”_ she paused, barely brushing her lips against his as her hand settled on gripping him through his sweatpants, “you want me, too.”

He groaned, his fingers tangling in her hair as he kissed her, his other hand slipping underneath her shirt. His smile broke their kiss momentarily as she arched closer to him, sighing into his mouth when he gently pawed at her breasts. She barely had enough time to jerk his shirt up over his head before he was tugging hers off, sliding down her body to lick and suck and nip his way across her chest. 

Her fingers weaved into his hair, her other hand working its way underneath his waistband, pulling a groan out of him as she stroked him, careful to keep her touch light. He was so pent up, his focus quickly fading until he was just breathing against her chest, his tongue flicking out to taste salty skin between each breathy sound he made. He rocked into her touch, murmuring praise among _yes_ ses and _please_ s and _oh, fuck, god, Amy_ s. 

He adjusted when she tugged at his waistband, helping her to slide his pants and boxers off, kicking them unceremoniously to the floor. He was in a daze, overcome with desire, with pleasure, with Amy. He hummed against her lips as he kissed her, half out of protest when she let go of him, her hand sliding back up his chest to trace against his jaw. He slipped his hand down her body, absorbing her moan when he brushed his fingers against her still sensitive skin.

“Jake—” she arched closer, gasping against his lips. “Fuck, what’s the next question?” 

He nuzzled his nose against hers, their breath mingling together as she shifted her hips against his. “Mmmm, next question…” He kissed the corner of her mouth, his voice soft and low. “Are you ready?” 

She looked into his eyes, her fingers curling into the hair at the nape of his neck. She cradled his face with her other hand. He leaned into her touch, smiling to himself and nuzzling closer to her again. Her lips were soft and warm on his, her tongue tracing along his bottom lip before she pulled back to look at him. She traced her thumb along his cheekbone. “Yes.” 

“Good, let me just get the timer—” 

“Jake—” He laughed softly, but he made no move to reach for his phone on the floor. 

“What? You got the question right, that’s a minute and a half—”

 _“Jake,”_ her voice was a little more stern. She tipped his face so that he was looking directly at her, her other hand leaving his hair to slide between them, her grip on his cock firm enough that he had to fight to keep his eyes open and on hers. “I need you to fuck me.” 

He nodded, already a complete wreck, his shallow breath falling against her lips. 

“Right now.” 

There was a time in his life—before he’d met Amy—when he thought that the best sex in his life was behind him. But Amy constantly raised the bar, was constantly bringing new things to the table, and it didn’t matter how many times she did this, he knew one thing for sure: 

Amy taking control was, without a doubt, the hottest thing he’d ever experienced. He would crumble for her every time. 

“Are _you_ ready?” Her lips brushed against his as she asked the question, her voice steady and doing all the right things for him. 

He nodded again, one of his hands moving to mirror hers, angling her face toward his. He’d never been so turned on, and he’d never been so in love, and when she used her grip on him to tease herself, waiting for him to push his hips forward, he was certain that he’d never recover. 

But he pulled it together, his thumb stroking her cheek as he pushed into her. They both sighed, Amy whispering a sharp _fuck_ under her breath. He held her close, his hips slowly drawing forward as she arched closer to him. They breathed together, all soft, quiet concentration and wet kisses pressed to every inch of exposed skin within reach. He was intent on moving slow, his lips ghosting across her neck, all whispers and whimpers as he pushed deeper. She arched closer, clutching his shoulder, her fingers locking into his hair as she moved with him. 

It didn’t take long for Amy to tire of Jake’s torturous pace. She hooked her leg over his hip, pressing him deeper into her as she shifted, rolling with him until his back was pressed into the mattress. He squeezed his eyes shut, his lips parting in a silent gasp, hands gripping her hips tight enough that she’d definitely bruise. Her efforts were a stark opposite to his, hands anchored on his chest to allow her to rotate her hips against his, rocking against him hard and fast and every movement left him more wrecked than the last. 

Jake normally had a penchant for these sorts of things. While their sex life was always exciting and varied, there were a few typical consistencies. Jake’s lips, gentle and constant on her skin, for example. A slow kiss, a handful of groans, a few quiet curses leading him to his desperate, unintelligible rambling, phrases littered with her name as he approached his climax. 

This was different. 

He couldn’t pinpoint what brought on the change. This wasn’t the first time they’d brought a sort of game to bed, and while he definitely had _moments_ like this, he wasn’t typically completely consumed like this. Everything she did pulled a sound out of him, each breath accompanied by a rough groan, moans that he tried to muffle with his lips pressed to her skin, begging and pleading and _talking,_ always talking. Amy was loving every second of his incoherence, but he was just so overwhelmed with pleasure that he barely noticed. She let him take control again, his grip on her hips allowing him to thrust into her at an angle.

“Is this—are you—” Jake hummed. “Good—is this good?” 

Her fingers twitched against his skin, nodding, her eyes squeezed shut. “Yes—yeah, yeah, yeah,” her words came out in a rushed whisper. “Just _harder_. Please, harder.” 

He murmured a jumbled sentence that resembled _god, you’re fucking hot_ as he obliged her request, pulling her down against him each time he snapped his hips up until he was arching toward her.

“I love you,” she whimpered in that breathy way she did, the way that made his stomach clench with desire in a normal moment. He was halfway sure that it might actually kill him in this moment—and honestly, if it did, he wouldn’t even be mad.

“Don’t,” he begged, his movements slowing helplessly. It didn’t matter. She shifted on top of him, changing her angle and picking up speed to combat his slowing hips. “Babe, I’m gonna come, I’m—”

“No, wait,” she murmured back, doubling down in an effort to chase her own release. He slipped his hand between her legs, desperately trying to get her there before he lost what little control he had of himself.

“Ames, I—” He pleaded, his free hand tightening on her hips. He was acutely aware that he was going to bruise her, but he could barely form a rational thought, much less focus on readjusting his grip. “Please, I—I can’t—fuck, Amy, _please—”_

He was trembling, every muscle in his body tensing as he tried to distance the inevitable. He was falling apart for her, holding back until the _second_ her orgasm hit her. He felt it before she announced it, and by the time the words left her lips he was already coming, hips flexing up as he pulled her down to meet him for a sloppy kiss. He tipped his face into her neck, groaning and kissing and whispering and holding her—she couldn’t possibly get closer but his fingers kept rubbing across her back, an inexplicable need to keep her close overcoming him. 

She collapsed against his chest, both of them completely spent and breathless, tangling themselves up in each other as quickly as they could muster. He’d never come apart so spectacularly in his life, and he only _kind of_ thought he’d be able to bring himself to move within the next three hours. 

He wrapped an arm around her, pressing a slow kiss to her temple, breathing her in as his heart rate returned to normal. She shifted off of him, settling against his chest and snuggling in, similarly exhausted. 

“I love you,” he murmured into her hair. 

There were a handful of reactions Jake expected her to have to what he’d just said. A quick _I love you, too,_ teasing him for not being able to say it back just a few minutes earlier, simply closing her eyes and humming, too sleepy to be bothered with speaking. She was quiet for a moment. He dragged his fingers through her hair, assuming she’d already fallen asleep in his arms. He didn’t blame her. She’d been studying all day, barely taking a break from her concentration for hours, and then _that_ on top of it? He turned to press a kiss against her temple. He suddenly remembered that she hadn’t eaten, and he swore that the second she woke up, he’d make sure that changed. 

“Move in with me.” 

He tensed. _That_ wasn’t one of the things he’d expected her to say. She propped herself up on his chest so she could look at him. 

“What?” 

She offered him a gentle smile, the one that usually made all his concerns fade away. She was warmth and comfort and protection, even when she was the reason that he was on edge. “I love you, too. Move in with me.” 

He swallowed. She rested her head on his chest again, her fingers tracing lazily against his collarbone. She was comforting him. And he should say something—he should say _anything_ , but he just _couldn’t_. 

He’d never lived with a woman before. Except his mom and, once, for a brief stint, _Gina_ , but that barely happened and it didn’t count anyway. He’d never lived with a woman who he’d been in a relationship with before. 

And yeah, he thought that one day they’d move in together, he _hoped_ that one day they’d move in together, but he honestly hadn’t put that much thought toward it. They’d been dating for six months—and had he been dating anybody else for six months, it would have been out of the question. But he and Amy started casually seeing each other over a year and a half earlier. They’d grown to be best friends, and while there were moments throughout that friendship that were less than perfect (they didn’t speak much about the days when they’d tried to haphazardly cut each other out of their lives), their romantic relationship was happy and healthy and unlike anything he’d ever been a part of before. 

She challenged him, and she loved him, and she made him better. 

And he should be panicking— _really panicking_ —but instead, he found himself relaxing into her again. For the first time in his life, a woman he was in a serious relationship with had just asked him to move in with her. The walls should be closing in around him. From what he’d heard about, this moment should feel like he’s being catapulted into a horror movie, and while he had always been sure that he’d gain his footing pretty quickly, he had expected to feel something akin to panic. He should feel small in a world that was so big, so vast and uncertain and scary, but the more he thought about it, the less scary it all was. They already spent most nights together, anyway. He had a section in her closet, a drawer in her dresser, a corner of the bathroom counter dedicated to his products. 

“You don’t have to answer right away,” she continued, pulling him out of his thoughts. “But I want to. Do that, I mean. Move in together.” 

“Let’s do it.” 

She propped herself up to look at him again, wide eyes blinking slowly. “Jake, you don’t have to—”

“I want to.” He nodded, smiling reassuringly at her. He leaned in, pressing a chaste kiss to her lips. “I want to move in with you.” 

“Are you sure?” 

He nodded again. “I’ve never been more sure of anything.”

He watched the slow smile spread across her face. She leaned in, giving him a few slow kisses. She leaned her forehead against his. “I love you.” 

“I love _you.”_

Then she settled back in against his chest. He pulled the sheet up around them, snuggling her close, intent on napping for a few hours during the lazy summer afternoon. They’d order in for dinner, talking logistics and interior decorating, how to turn her home into _their_ home. They’d shower together as her sheets cycled through the dryer, and he’d fall asleep with her in his arms and not a single doubt in his mind. 

—

It just all made sense with her. 

He never had a doubt about it, even now, three months later, as their friends helped them to move his things out of his apartment. They’d been waiting for his lease to end, and despite her many reminders and suggestions about packing, he, Amy, Rosa, Charles, and Gina were surrounded by a majority of his belongings. 

“In my defense, you said I should _think_ about packing. And I did think about it!” 

“Ya’know, it’s not too late for you to change your mind, Amy…” Rosa ran her fingers along the edges of envelopes in a box that seemingly contained nothing but mail. 

“Hold on, it _is_ too late. Jake’s lease is over, and I’m not taking him in if she changes her mind.” Gina perched on the edge of the counter. “I lived with him once and it was the worst time of my life.” 

“Okay, Gina, I’m still not taking responsibility for spilling that bottle of nail polish. It shouldn’t have been open and just sitting on the counter.”

“Yeah, well you shouldn’t have been sitting on the counter.” 

“You’re sitting on the counter right now.” 

“It was my last bottle of Louvre Me, Louvre Me Not, Jake. The color was discontinued. Was I supposed to just use In the Cable Car-Pool Lane?” She scoffed. “They’re completely different hues.”

“Purple is purple.”

“I can’t talk to him right now.” She pushed herself off the counter, looking down at her phone as she walked over to another corner of the room. 

Charles patted Jake on the back. “Don’t worry, you and Amy will have a much easier time living with each other.” He sighed dreamily. “You guys are in love and every time you get in a fight, you can just wash each other’s hair and everything will be fine.” 

Rosa scoffed. “No, it’ll be easier because they bone.” 

“Rosa!” Amy hissed. Gina laughed on the other side of the room. 

“Actually, she’s right. That would be the case with the hair washing. I can give you guys a few tips on the most erotic—”

“Okay, that’s enough of that conversation.” Jake clapped his hands on Charles’s shoulders. “We’re going over there.” 

“Yeah, we’ll take the bedroom.” Amy turned toward the hallway, Rosa following behind her. 

“I’m going with you guys because Jake’s an inconsiderate, colorblind fool.” 

“They’re the exact same color, G.” 

“Hey, Amy, has Jake ever told you the story about that one time in high school when he—”

Jake rolled his eyes as the women disappeared into his bedroom, Gina’s voice quieting after they were out of his sight. 

It couldn’t have been more than thirty minutes later when he heard a commotion coming from the bedroom. He and Charles trailed into the room to see what was going on. 

Charles made it in first, and Jake’s vision was obscured from the way Boyle was standing in front of him. Rosa’s laughter struck him before anything else, but Amy’s frustrated groan was the next thing he noticed. 

“Oh, great, Charles is here,” she murmured, her voice thick with sarcasm. 

“Oh my _god,”_ Charles exclaimed, finally walking further into the room. “Is that what I think it is?” 

Amy groaned, and as Jake followed Charles into the room, he finally understood why. 

Rosa and Gina were currently shuffling through the sex toy box. The one that they kept on the top shelf of his closet. The one that Amy told him he should bring to her apartment before all of their friends came to help pack. 

Rosa turned around, a pink vibrator in one hand and a slightly different blue one in the other. “His and hers?” 

Jake opened his mouth to reply, but faltered. Sex wasn’t embarrassing _at all_ , and he’d talked about sex with the people in this room at least a hundred times each, but something about Rosa thrusting sex toys that he’d used with Amy at him had his face feeling uncharacteristically warm. 

“And here I thought Amy was a prude.” Gina laughed, then elbowed Amy lightly in the side. “Good job, girl.” 

“Is that edible shampoo?!” Charles reached into the box, then pulled out a bottle to inspect. “Ugh, it’s just lube.” 

“Okay, you _guys,”_ Jake’s voice was an octave higher than usual, and he chose to ignore Amy’s smirk in his direction. Her cheeks were a little flushed, but she seemed to be handling the teasing better overall than he was. “Maybe we don’t all play with sex toys that I’ve—”

“Had inside of you?” Charles finished. 

“What? No—I mean— _Charles.”_ Jake stepped forward, snatching the toy Charles was inspecting out of his hands. 

Gina held up a blindfold. “God, I should’ve known your uptight thing was just a front for you being kinky.” She held up a pair of handcuffs. “What, the real cuffs just don’t do it for you?” 

“Real cuffs aren’t for use in the bedroom, Gina.” Amy snapped, her face flushing all over again. She tilted her head, mumbling a little quieter. “Plus the real cuffs leave pretty bad marks.”

“Yeah, and they _hurt.”_ Jake whined. 

Rosa laughed. “Should’ve known Jake was the sub.” 

“Hey! I’m not _always.”_ He paused, sighing heavily as he took yet another item out of Gina’s hands. “Can you guys please—”

“What’s the big deal, Jake? We know they’re clean. They’re Amy’s.” 

“Actually,” he paused for a moment, and Gina, Rosa, and Charles all looked at him with wide eyes. He kept a straight face as he continued. “They’re not Amy’s. That’s actually a box that’s been in my closet for _years._ Don’t know what’s—”

“Ew!” They all started dropping things back in the box, which Amy leaned down and picked up. Jake replaced all the items in his hands inside the box, then leaned over and kissed Amy on the cheek, a quick apology for leaving the box in the closet in the first place. 

“Ugh, you’re the worst.” Rosa mumbled.

Gina squirted hand sanitizer for all three of them, making a face at Jake as she rubbed her hands together.

“Okay, they’re obviously mine _and_ they’re clean.” Amy rolled her eyes. 

“You’re still the worst.” 

Amy laughed, shoving the box over by the door. “I don’t remember asking you guys to go through the box.”

“What’s this?” Gina was back inside the closet, shifting through Jake’s disorganized piles to reach for a gift bag in the back corner. 

He laughed suddenly, shoving his way around his friends to take the gift bag out of Gina’s hands. Yet again, his voice was a little too high. “That’s nothing!” 

“Uh-oh,” Rosa murmured, quirking an eyebrow in Amy’s direction, who just looked confused.

Jake held the bag behind his back, rubbing the back of his neck with his free hand and bashfully avoiding Amy’s eyes. “It’s not—it’s, uh…”

“The tag says it’s for Amy.” Charles announced behind his back. 

_“Boyle.”_

Jake acquiesced when Gina slipped around him to pull the gift bag out of his hands again. He sighed, his eyes flickering over to Amy and then back to the floor. “It’s nothing, it’s just—like, a little embarrassing, I guess.” 

“An embarrassing gift! Amy, open it. I can’t wait to see what it is.” 

“Jake, I don’t have to…” He looked up to find Amy looking at him expectantly, waiting for either his permission or his refusal. 

He took a deep breath. “It’s fine. It’s not, like, _embarrassing._ It’s just…” He shook his head, watching as she set the bag on the end of his bed and began pulling the tissue paper out. “It was your birthday gift, but, you know, we weren’t exactly on the best terms on your birthday last year and I wasn’t sure how I should handle it…” 

She grinned as she pulled out a white mug, the words _World’s Okayest Crossword Solver_ printed across it. 

_“That’s_ your embarrassing gift? A mug?” Gina scoffed. “You continue to disappoint me, Jacob.” 

“I mean it _does_ have bad grammar on it, so that’s pretty embarrassing.” Amy’s smile widened when he shook his head at her. 

He rolled his eyes at Gina, then turned his head back toward Amy. “There’s more.” He shrugged. “You know, you made my birthday really special last year, but by the time your birthday came around, things were kind of weird between us… So I got this stuff, but then I thought maybe it’d be safer if I just got you lunch instead.” 

She sat on the end of his bed, inspecting the leather binder on her lap. She traced her fingers over the steel nameplate, _Detective Amy Santiago_ etched into it in pretty cursive. 

His hand found the back of his neck again as she looked up at him. “The, uh, nameplate is removable. So when you become a sergeant, we can order you a new one.” He shrugged. “Same for when you’re lieutenant, then captain.” 

“Damn.” Rosa walked over to Amy, inspecting the binder alongside her. “This looks expensive.” 

“It was,” Amy whispered. “This is better than the one I was looking at and _that_ was expensive.” 

Jake shrugged again. “It was nothing.” 

“Damn,” Gina echoed Rosa. “You were totally in love with her.” 

“Shut up—”

Amy and Rosa both laughed, but Gina continued. “No, you had it so bad. I mean, I knew you really liked her back then, but I didn’t know you were _personalized gifts_ in love.”

“I just wanted to do something nice. She gave me basically the first good birthday I’ve ever had. I wanted to make her day special, too.” Jake defended quietly, his fingers tugging through his hair in search of something to do with his hands. 

“I think you guys are glossing over a very important fact here.” Charles stood in the middle of the group, throwing his arms up while everyone shot confused glances at him. “We don’t have time to talk about how in love with Amy Jake was. Did you hear what he said?! Amy made his birthday good _last year!”_ He stood there with his eyebrows raised like that should mean something to them. 

“Okay?” Gina prompted. 

“So neither Jake nor Amy came to the bar with us! I bet there was never even a raccoon!”

Amy stifled a laugh, but her laughter roared up when Charles stared at her in exasperation. 

“Charles, I’m not gonna connect those dots for you.” Gina rolled her eyes. 

Amy set the binder on the bed, making her way over to Jake. She wrapped her arms around his neck and he smiled into her hair as he returned her hug. 

“I love it.” She murmured. 

“I love you.” He whispered back. 

“Give them two seconds and they might connect the dots for you, though.” Rosa smirked, and Gina snickered. 

Amy twisted out of Jake’s arms. _“You guys_ are the worst.”

“And here I thought we were helping you—”

Charles interrupted Gina. “There was no raccoon! And I thought _this year_ was the first good birthday you’ve had!” 

After reminding Charles that he _did_ have a great birthday this year, spent with all of his friends at Shaw’s (and avoiding the part where he only went out with everyone at Amy’s request because what _he_ really wanted was to repeat their celebration from the year before), plus promising to spend his _next_ birthday following the eleven step birthday plan that he’d skipped out on the year before, Charles relaxed a little bit. Jake and Amy exchanged fond glances while they all returned to packing things up. 

The rest of the day went without surprise. They all joked and argued like usual, but there were no more hidden gifts or boxes of personal items to cause an uproar. Every now and then one of them would find an object or a piece of clothing that reminded them of a memory, and they’d all laugh about it together and exchange old stories. 

He locked the back of the moving truck, then walked to the other side to wave at Charles as a signal to pull off. He thought that Amy would have joined them outside by now, but he watched the truck pull away with Charles, Gina, and Rosa inside, and she was still nowhere to be found.

He wanted to take an extra moment to say goodbye to the apartment, anyways. It had been his home for the past few years, and while it originally wasn’t quite as important to him as his Nana’s apartment had been, this place was the background for a lot of his favorite memories. Favorite memories that almost all included Amy Santiago, who, upon coming inside, he found was _not_ in the living room like he’d expected her to be. 

“Ames?” He called from the doorway, but there was no response. He furrowed his eyebrows, glancing around as he made his way down the hallway. The apartment was entirely empty, it’s not like she should be hard to find. “Amy?” 

He pushed his bedroom door open the rest of the way, his heart swelling at the sight of her. She was curled up on his bedroom floor, her back against the wall below the window. Her knees were tented, and she was holding something that he couldn’t quite see from where he was at. 

His voice was full of all the warmth he felt for her, his words trailing into a soft laugh. “What are you doing?” 

Her face had been partially hidden, tipped down and focusing on whatever she was holding. The second she looked up at him, he was overcome with concern. Her eyes were glistening, but there was a hint of a smile that she bit away as she tried to control the emotion she was experiencing. “I’m, uhm…” She swallowed, her voice wobbling. 

“Babe, what’s going—”

His voice caught in his throat as he approached her, the edges of a piece of notebook paper visible in her hands. The edge of the paper was jagged, like it had been hastily torn from whatever notebook it had previously been in. A note, for example, written all in a rush before excitedly slipping out of the bedroom, intent on returning with coffee and bagels for the woman curled up in his blankets. 

But it couldn’t be. 

“What is…?” He whispered. 

Amy shook her head, a little disbelieving laugh slipping out of her. She squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head, a single tear rolling down her cheek. “Jake…” 

He made his way over to her, opening his arms for her to lean into him as he sat down beside her. He took a deep breath, breathing her in, wrapping her in his arms and pressing a kiss to the top of her head. He kept one arm around her as he turned his attention to the piece of paper in her hands. 

_ames—_

_i really missed you. last night was… ~~so hot~~ really ~~cool~~ special._

_for the first time in probz my entire life, i **WANT** to talk about feelings stuff. & like c’mon you know how hard that is for me. idk i guess i just think you’re worth it. like maybe we could be worth it ya kno?_

_if you wake up before i’m home, just know that it only feels like home when you’re here._

_getting bagelzzz. b back soon._

_♥ jake_

His messy handwriting scrawled across the page, the black marker he used smudged across the bottom where he hadn’t capped the marker before setting it down. He shook his head, briefly remembering the days when Amy wasn’t a part of his life, when he’d been under the impression that she’d taken this note and rejected him, of the times when his home was a shell full of clutter and memories of her that made his heart ache in the worst way. Days when he tried so hard to shove his affection for her away, but was always left full of feelings he didn’t know what to do with and memories he couldn’t escape. 

“Where did you find this?” 

She leaned her head on his shoulder, sniffling quietly. “I was checking to see if we’d accidentally missed anything after you and Charles carried the bed frame out. It was on the floor, uhm, behind the headboard, I guess.” 

Behind the headboard. 

“Because I put the note on my pillow, thinking you’d turn to look for me when you woke up and that you’d see it, but you must’ve—”

“Rolled closer to you,” she finished. She looked up at him. “I moved toward where I thought you would be instead of looking. So I must have knocked the note back behind the mattress when I moved.” 

Jake shook his head. “I thought…” His breath huffed out of him in a little soundless laugh. “I thought you read it. And then you… you _left.”_

“So you showed up to work thinking I rejected you. After that night… And the last time we’d been together before then was my—” She trailed off, covering her face for a moment, her cheeks darkening at the shameful memory. “My parents’ house…” 

“I didn’t even think about it. I was…” He shook his head again, clenching his jaw at the memory, at the pain he felt when he’d walked into the precinct and she wouldn’t even return his eye contact after he _really_ thought things had changed between them. But she had never seen the note.

“Hurt,” she whispered. “I, uh…” She scoffed. “I thought that you regretted it. I thought you were just trying to feel better, and so you slept with me, but you realized in the morning that it was a mistake, so you left. I was embarrassed, and I was hurt, and I was… God, Jake, I felt so stupid.”

“I thought you felt the same way as I did after that night. And then when I got back home and both you and the note were gone…” He rubbed his hand across her bicep. “I felt stupid, too. And I just… after the last two times being like that—”

“I’m so sorry, Jake.” She sniffled again, and he shifted to hold her closer. 

“Hey.” His voice was soft, not quite shaky, but not as stable as usual, either. “It wasn’t your fault. I’m sorry for reacting the way I did.”

“You were right to react like that, if that’s what you thought happened. We didn’t speak for, like, three months, Jake. Over a misunderstanding. You almost transferred to a different precinct because of me.” 

“But I didn’t.” 

“I mean, technically you did.” Her voice was on the edge of hysterical. He ran his fingers through her hair, a small gesture of comfort. “Jake, what if we didn’t bump into each other in the subway that day? What if I got to your house and you weren’t there and we never saw each other? What if you left and we never even knew that this happened?” 

“Ames.” He shifted so he could turn to face her, taking her face in both of his hands. “I would live every single one of our worst moments over again if it meant that I got to be right here with you.” He nodded his head seriously at her, his thumb sweeping across her bottom lip. “It doesn’t matter. Yeah, it would’ve been ideal for us to have caught onto this, or, like, ya’know, maybe been adult enough to have a conversation about it at the time, but it doesn’t matter. I _didn’t_ leave. And we _did_ bump into each other in the subway. And I love you _so much_ , Amy Santiago. Every single moment has been worth it to me.” 

She leaned into him, pressing a chaste kiss to his lips before practically climbing into his lap. He shifted to pull her into him, smiling into her neck when she wrapped her legs around his waist to match the way her arms were wrapped around his neck. 

“I love you,” she mumbled into his shoulder. 

“I love you,” he replied, pressing a kiss to her forehead as he pulled away slightly. 

She shifted to pick up the note that she’d discarded next to them. She glanced down at it, then laughed softly. “You were totally in love with me when you wrote this note.” 

He laughed, messing up her hair with his fingers, then kissing her temple when she protested. “Yeah.” He nodded earnestly. “I totally was.” 

They shared a moment, half holding each other and all soft smiles, and then Jake looked around the room. “We should probably head out. You know Rosa will probably break into your apartment if we don’t show up with the keys within like five minutes of them getting there.” 

“Our.” 

“What?” 

He stood up when she shifted off of his lap, and he extended an arm down to help pull her up with him. 

“You said _my_ apartment. It’s ours.” 

His smile just about cracked his face in half. “Yeah. Ours.” 

They held hands on their way back through the hallway, Amy clutching the note in her free hand. They took a moment to glance around at the empty kitchen and the bare living room. He smiled to himself, thinking about the day that he moved into this place, Gina propped up on his couch flipping through episodes of Gossip Girl on Netflix while he pinned his Die Hard poster up on the wall. He thought about Charles, his insistence on coming over to make Jake a giant pot of soup when he’d called off with a cold, once. He hadn’t warned him at all, so Jake took a huge bite of some soup packed full of spicy peppers, which Charles swore would clear his sinuses up, but it _also_ made his mouth numb for at least three hours. He thought about Rosa, trying to hide her laughter in her beer bottle the time that he convinced her to reluctantly catch up with him a few years after the academy. She didn’t really want to talk, but she laughed like four different times at whatever comedy special he’d put on. 

He thought about Amy. The way she’d settled onto his lap as they teased each other, the first time she’d ever been there. _I could never fall in love with someone with a Die Hard poster in their living room._ God, was he glad she was wrong. He thought about kissing her, about holding her against his chest while he mindlessly hummed the Tangled soundtrack. He thought about her touching him languidly, about the time where she’d teased him all the way home in the cab, then pushed him against the back of the door the second they stepped inside so she could blow him without wasting any time. 

He thought about clumsy dancing and mint chocolate chip ice cream. He thought about hot showers and cold nights that led to her tunneling further into his arms. He thought about comforting her the time Mateo got in a pretty bad car accident, holding her in his arms and letting her get all of her fears out, then reassuring her that he would be with her no matter what happened. He thought about all the _I love you_ s, all the love and unspoken promises for their futures, now irrevocably intertwined. He thought about how his future held more memories, more love, more promises. More Amy. 

Finally, he thought about how right this all felt. Goodbyes were hard, and he’d moved quite a few times in his life, and he’d never found it to be easy. Big changes were difficult for him. 

Nothing about this felt difficult. 

Jake ran his fingers along the doorframe, looking back at his empty apartment. After a moment, Amy stepped back into the doorway. She tucked herself into his side, her arms looping around his waist, her face dipping into the crook of his neck. 

“You okay?” 

He smiled gently, his arms winding around her to keep her close. He twisted to press a kiss to her forehead. 

“I’ve never been better, Ames.” 

He walked out of his apartment with his arm around her shoulders. The place he’d called home for years, the place where he’d made countless memories with his friends, the place he’d spent so much time falling in love with her… 

He locked the door, and he never looked back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay hi again. 
> 
> how are you feeling about the note reveal? i think that's why it took me so long to get this chapter out, because i was so concerned about the note. 
> 
> also do y'all want my depth spotify playlist???? it has all the songs used for titles, mentioned in chapters, a few that just remind me of the fic and then a few that i might be using for future chapters idk. lmk if you're interested and i can link it. 
> 
> also oh my GOD???? you guys, this fic is almost at 500 kudos and i am BAFFLED. I love and appreciate all of you that have stuck through this long ass story and taken time to read and comment and check in and just exist—you're all the best. I feel undeserving and grateful and warm. I can't believe we're this close to the end of this story. 
> 
> Thank you again!! Sending love to you all and hoping you all continue to stay safe and healthy!!! 
> 
> hoping to be a lil quicker w the next update but no promises ¨̮


	22. you won't do this alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> AHHHHHHHHH I can't believe I finally made it to this chapter. Part of this chapter has been in the works for forever, the other part has been a more recent addition (as of a few chapters when I stupidly added all that case bs—an instant regret of mine lmao). 
> 
> also this clocks in at just over 20k words—the longest chapter in this fic. I am SO SORRY LMAO. 
> 
> Lmao okay so let’s get this out of the way::::::
> 
> TW: mentions of murder, serial murder, graphic violence and abuse, implied (but not overtly mentioned) sexual abuse, abduction… did I miss any??? who knows but please let me know if i did! 
> 
> also deciding to do a portion of a chapter dedicated to a case is the worst decision i’ve ever made nobody ever let me do this again i was not made for planning like this and it still came out mediocre a;sldkfjadls;kfl. this happened because i recently read those two elsaclack case-heavy fics for the first time and i loved them so much, they’re so talented with that sort of writing and y’all that just ain’t me and after this experience i am comfortable saying i don’t want it to be me lmao. but anyways read those fics if you haven't!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Voldemort by With Confidence. Y'all listen to the acoustic version of this mf song I love it so MUCH. 
> 
> _And I know that you're holding out for better weather,_   
>  _And I can't promise you that I'll be 'round forever,_   
>  _If there's one thing I know it's that we're good together,_   
>  _If there's one thing I know it's that we're good together._
> 
> _And I will try to hold you up through those times when you are gone._   
>  _Despite the weather, it gets better,_   
>  _You won't do this alone._

One year. 

One whole year, Amy Santiago had been his girlfriend. One whole year since they bumped into each other in a subway station, since what he likes to think was fate’s way of stepping in and making sure they finally got things right. One year since Kylie got married. One year since the blue ribbon murder, which, much to his dismay, remained unsolved. 

One whole year. 

And he had big plans. 

Keyword: _had._

Because fifty-one weeks into Jake’s relationship with Amy, one week before their first anniversary, they walked into the precinct early to find it uncharacteristically buzzing with activity. He had dinner reservations for that upcoming Friday that he’d made three months in advance. He had a suit laid out in the spare bedroom—he even had it _dry cleaned_ —because this place was _that_ fancy, and he wanted the night to be _that_ perfect. Amy had a new dress that he hadn’t seen her in yet, and _god_ , he was so excited to finally see it. He was daydreaming about it on their elevator ride, but the second the doors opened, the chaos before them chased the happy thoughts out of his head. 

“What’s going on?” Amy asked quietly, watching the night shift squad shuffling throughout the precinct. There was an eerie sort of silence, though detectives and uniformed officers alike were frantically moving about the space, files shifting between hands and a look of pure exhaustion written on every face in sight. 

Captain Holt caught their attention, already sitting at his desk, looking tired. He offered one grave nod, and Jake and Amy exchanged alarmed glances before heading straight to the office and shutting the door. 

Emily Andersen. 

That’s the name of the victim a teenage couple stumbled upon in the middle of the night. Three miles from last year’s dumpsite. She was a psychiatrist. Thirty-five years old, long, dark hair. Five feet, six inches tall. One green ribbon tied in a neat little bow around her left wrist. 

Exactly one year after the blue ribbon murder. 

“It might be best if you rescheduled your plans for Friday night, detectives.” 

Jake let out a long, slow breath. He could feel Amy’s eyes on him, but he didn’t return her gaze. He hadn’t entirely forgotten about what he’d deemed the Case From Hell™, but it was just about the last thing on his mind these days. The case was officially deemed cold after two months without a single piece of new evidence. They’d exhausted every possible lead, had spent hours and days and weeks and, eventually, _months_ trying to figure it all out, but there was just nothing. The only suspect they had ended up having an airtight alibi, and eventually, it was taken over by Major Crimes, considered unrelated to the previous serial murders, and shoved into a box with all the other cold cases. 

Jake hadn’t let go of it easily. Call it a hunch. He just _knew_ it wasn’t a copycat. It was the same guy, he just _couldn’t figure it out._ The man just disappeared. For _months_ , Jake obsessed over it, spending so much of his free time trying to connect the dots that Amy had to have a really serious talk with him about it. And it sucked, and it was wrong, but she was right—he had to back off a little. 

He’d been waiting for something else to happen with the case, because he knew it would be coming eventually, but he hadn’t even thought about it the last few weeks. He’d been so preoccupied with their upcoming anniversary and the sergeant’s exam that Amy had finally just taken that he hadn’t even been checking missing persons reports in the area for women who matched the description. If he _had been_ , maybe he could have prevented this. But he didn’t. And now another woman was dead because of it. Because of _him_.

He was smarter than this. He was a better detective than this. He should have known that the anniversary of the last murder meant something. He should have expected this. 

“I just don’t under _stand,”_ he murmured later that night as he and Amy tucked their garment bags back into the closet. “How does he just disappear like that?” 

“I don’t know, Jake.” 

“He can’t just be…” He trailed off. “He’s taking these women and _torturing them.”_ He sat down on the edge of the bed, sighing quietly when Amy sat next to him, pulling her legs up so that they rested partially in his lap, her hands moving comfortingly over his shoulders. “I should’ve caught this.” 

“The case was cold, Jake.” 

“But it was the anniversary, Ames. I should’ve known.” He clenched his jaw, shaking his head at himself. He’d had this guilt swirling around inside him since Holt informed them of the new victim. 

“It wasn’t our case anymore. There’s nothing—”

“But I could’ve.” He stopped short, taking a deep, frustrated breath. _“I should have.”_ Her hands stilled against his shoulders, and he let himself lean into her. “Maybe she’d still be alive.” 

Amy was quiet for a moment. She pulled him closer, shifting so she could wrap her arms around his neck where he leaned into her shoulder. Her fingers pulled through his hair. “This isn’t your fault, Jake.”

He took a deep breath, nestling his face further into her neck. “It feels like it,” he murmured, his words muffled into her skin. 

“I know. I wish we had done something to stop this, too. But it isn’t your fault. And it isn’t my fault. It’s his fault. And this time, we’re gonna catch him.” 

They didn’t catch him. 

He let her pull him under the covers that night, fell asleep with her fingers running through his hair and her lips pressing against his forehead, let himself be comforted despite his mind’s constant reminder that he didn’t deserve to be. The next day, they really buckled down. 

After investigating the dumpsite, comparing it to the previous dumpsites, spending three days mapping out all of the dumpsites and visiting every potential focal point of each crime scene, they turned to craft supply stores. There was, unsurprisingly, no DNA evidence at this scene, just like the others. So maybe this time, they start with the ribbon and work their way backwards. 

Twelve craft supply stores in a twenty-mile radius of any of the dumpsites, plus fifteen big box stores that carry ribbon. To narrow down the search, they met with a team of trace analysts and forensic examiners, where they practically begged them to further investigate the ribbon in hopes of getting _some_ kind of information out of it. After two weeks of arguing back and forth with them, they finally determined that the particular color used in the green ribbon was only supplied by one company. This brand wasn’t sold in any of the big box stores, but it was sold in seven of the craft supply stores. 

Which would have been extremely helpful—if they had any idea when the ribbon was purchased. They went to all seven of the stores and interviewed all of the management team, asking about any peculiar customers that they regularly saw. Aside from a few different creepy men who stood a little too close to the employees and a woman who frequently came in with special effects makeup on, nothing seemed out of the ordinary to anyone. 

It took another week to get the warrant for purchase information, and even then they were only granted access to information dating back three months. They had no way of knowing when the ribbon was purchased—perhaps the person just owned a ton of ribbon already—but they would take any information they could get. 

While all of this was happening, they were also interviewing just about everyone their victim knew. Family, friends, coworkers, her yoga instructor, the barista in the Starbucks near her office—anybody who would speak to them about Emily, they were talking to. They cross-referenced every contact and every place of employment, every friend of a friend looking for _any_ link to the victim from the previous year, but there was _nothing_. Then they cross-referenced all of those names to every single name on all seven craft supply stores’ three months worth of purchase information and _still_ found nothing. 

Every single avenue they took led to a rapidly narrowing list of possibilities. It appeared that the murderer didn’t know the victims prior to selecting them. He was randomly choosing women. But how careless _was he?_ Was he simply waiting until within a week of the date and finding someone? Highly unlikely, since that would mean he only had a fraction of control over the situation. He had to know _something_ about them, since he knew they were all so heavily focused on their work. Was he stalking them ahead of time, keeping tabs so that he could find them when the timing was right? Was it actually not random at all and they just hadn’t found the connecting piece yet? 

He wasn’t sure. But they were three months in and things were looking bleak. After two months, they started getting assigned new cases again. At the three month mark, Major Crimes started digging around the case. After downright begging Holt, he pulled some strings and got them to back off. Jake wasn’t even sure how they still had access to the case, but he wasn’t going to ask any questions. He was too invested, he _needed_ to figure this out. 

It was consuming him as it was, but around month four, things got progressively worse. 

Amy took a deep breath, and both Jake and Holt watched her closely. They were locked away in Holt’s office, and her demeanor had him feeling more tense than he’d prefer.

“I think it’s time we talk about what we should do at the end of next January.” She swallowed, and he could practically see her nerves. She hadn’t mentioned anything about whatever she was thinking to him, so he had no idea what she was nervous about, but he could see it. She shied away from Holt’s gaze, looking to Jake, then ultimately looking down at the floor to avoid his eyes, too. “Uhm, assuming we don’t get any leads before then, I mean…” 

“Sergeant Santiago, if you have a suggestion for a way to proceed with the case, I’m sure we would both love to hear it.” 

Jake reached over to link his fingers with hers, his thumb rubbing over her knuckles as a tiny encouragement. She looked over at him—but she didn’t smile. Her next breath was small and quiet, and suddenly Jake’s nerves were just as bad as hers. 

“Obviously he’s going to do it again. I think we all agree that this is the same perp from the murders two years ago and not a copycat.” She paused, seemingly waiting for a response. 

“Yes, Santiago.” Holt seemed to be losing patience. He was pretty in tune with his squad, and seeing both Amy and now also Jake looking so frazzled was getting to him. “Please get on with it.” 

“I think we should use me as bait.” 

She blurted the words out, and the room immediately dissolved into silence. Jake’s gut reaction was to pull his hand away at that _insane_ idea, but he somehow managed to keep his hand in hers, though he tensed considerably. Holt blinked slowly at her. 

“I fit the description of the victims _exactly_. Same height, same build, same hair. I’m incredibly invested in my work, busy all the time. If I were in a lineup, I guarantee you he’d choose me. We just have to figure out exactly how to get me in front of him, sir.” 

This time, Jake did slip his hand out of her grip. Holt shook his head slightly, glancing between the two of them. 

“No.” The word sounded so nonchalant coming out of Jake’s lips. He almost couldn’t place his own voice. He laughed, an odd, exasperated sound. “That’s not happening.” 

Amy wrinkled her face up at that. “Well, it’s not really your decision, Jake.” 

He laughed again. “You’re not going to be bait for a _serial killer,_ Ames. Like…” He threw his hands up, like that was the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. It _was_ the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. 

“One of the victims from two years ago looks exactly like me.”

“Looked.” 

“What?” 

“One of the victims from two years ago _looked_ exactly like you. She doesn’t anymore because she’s _dead_ , Amy. Because of that man. You’re not—this isn’t…” He scoffed. “No.” 

She scoffed back, indignant. “It’s just another undercover case. You’ve been undercover. Are you telling me you weren’t in any danger when you were undercover with the Ianuccis?” 

“Are you kidding me?” He turned to look at Holt, trying to gauge his reaction, but he was stone-faced, as usual. “I was undercover as a part of the mob, not a victim they were actively trying to kill. That was completely different. It’s not the same.”

“It’s exactly the same,” she hissed back. 

He laughed again, bitter. “No.”

“It’s not your decision.” 

“Captain!” Jake exclaimed.

He hadn’t realized exactly how heated the argument had gotten until they both looked at Holt and things quieted down again, a tense silence blanketing them, rife with heavy, frustrated breathing from both Jake and Amy alike.

“She’s right, Peralta.” He furrowed his eyebrows at that, scowling down at the floor in front of him. “It’s not your decision. However,” he looked back up, “I have to agree with Detective Peralta. It’s too dangerous to send you into that. We don’t have enough information about what he’s doing to these women, and we wouldn’t have enough control of the situation to definitely have a grasp on it. At this point in time, I can’t be positive that you would be safe, and therefore I do not feel comfortable following that plan.” 

“With all due respect, sir, you can never be totally positive that any of us will be safe. That’s the job we signed up for.” She shot a glance at Jake, but he wouldn’t return her gaze. “My resemblance to the victims is an asset and I think it would be a mistake not to use it.” 

“I appreciate your tenacity and your willingness to put yourself at risk. At this time, I will not consider pursuing that tactic.” She sighed. Jake had the urge to reach over and grab her hand again, but he resisted. “If we uncover new information, perhaps we can revisit this conversation. I’d like you both to continue brainstorming. Dismissed.” 

Jake breathed a sigh of relief as they stood up, and Amy glared at him. He paused next to her as she pulled the door shut behind them when they exited. 

“Ames—”

“Don’t.” She interrupted him, holding her hand up at him. 

He watched with wide eyes as she turned away from him and walked straight to the elevator without another word. She didn’t turn back to look at him as she waited for it to open, and her eyes specifically avoided him when she turned around and hit the button for her floor. 

“Damn,” Rosa murmured. “What happened in there?” 

Jake sighed. “It’s about the case.” 

“That was about more than the case.” Rosa shook her head. “She’s pissed at you.” 

“Yeah, well.” He made his way over to his desk and slumped into his chair. Rosa and Charles both looked over at him, but they thought better of pressing the issue further. He glared at Amy’s old desk, wishing for about the millionth time that she still sat there. 

He knew, _obviously_ , that Amy fit the victim description perfectly. He knew, and if he let himself think about it too much, it entirely consumed him. Every day that he didn’t put this guy away was one day closer to Amy—or someone just like Amy—being his next victim. He tried his hardest to shove the thought to the back of his mind, but he knew. He knew Amy could take care of herself, but what if something happened? 

He loved her more than anything. Never in his adult life did he think he’d manage to find a person he felt this way about. They complemented one another so well, opposing each other in some ways, but always on the same side, despite their differences. 

He supposed he hadn’t really been on her side back there. But what she was suggesting was _insane_. He wasn’t going to stand idly by while the woman he loved walked straight into the arms of a murderer, not as a cop, but as a _victim_. What if something went wrong? Holt was right, they didn’t have enough information. 

Amy didn’t speak to him the rest of the day. She even ignored him when he brought pierogies and potato pancakes down to her at lunch. The drive home was silent, and it wasn’t until she was angrily changing out of her sergeant’s uniform that he couldn’t handle it anymore.

He sighed. “Can we please just talk about this?” 

She spun around on her heel to glare at him, somehow already ten notches angrier than she was seconds before (and he already considered her to be pretty angry). He took a step back, surprised. 

“I am _just_ as capable as you.”

He raised his eyebrows. “What?” 

“We have been equals in this job for years, Jake. I am just as capable of a detective as you are.” 

“You’re not—”

“Are you fucking kidding me—” 

_“Amy.”_ He shook his head, his eyes searching her face. She took a deep breath, but she clenched her jaw as she waited for him to continue. “You’re not just as capable as me, Amy.” She opened her mouth to speak, but he held his hand up to stop her. “You’re _more_ capable than me. That’s not what this is about.” 

Her eyebrows pulled together. “Then what _is_ this about?” 

“Ames…” He shook his head again, gently taking her hand and pulling her over to the bed with him. He sat down next to her, then pulled both of her hands into his lap. He took a deep, slow breath. “I love you so much. And you were incredible as a detective, now you’re incredible as a sergeant… And I get why you want to do this. _I do._ But…” He trailed off. “I would rather let him walk free than give him the opportunity to get his hands on you.” 

“Jake…” Her expression softened a little, but she shook her head. 

“I know.” He shrugged. “I’m being selfish, and I’m being scared, and maybe even a little stupid. I know. But Amy…” He shook his head again, looking down at the bed between them. “If you wanted to go undercover in a prison, or with the mob or, god, literally anywhere that didn’t make Amy Santiago the sole human target for a _serial killer?_ I hope you know I would be supportive. But I would never forgive myself if you volunteered as bait for this case that I basically dragged you into and then something happened to you. I already feel like I could have done something to stop him from hurting Emily, but you…” 

“Hey.” She pulled her hand out of his, tipping his face up so he had to look at her. “That wasn’t your fault, Jake.” 

“I know.” He took a deep breath, trying to dispel some of the emotion building up inside him. He furrowed his eyebrows, looking down at the bed again. “I’ve never felt this way about anybody before?” It came out as more of a question, but it was a fact. His voice shook a little as he continued. “Like, I’m in love,” his voice went up an octave, “with you? Uhm, and I think you caught me off guard, and I felt cornered in front of Holt, and I’ve never really thought about what a future without you might look like.” He cleared his throat, still refusing to meet her gaze. “And hearing you suggest that…” Crime scene images flashed through his mind again. “Thinking about that girl who looked _just like you_...” His voice broke a little. “Ames.” 

“Hey, hey…” She shifted into his lap, wrapping her arms around him and simultaneously becoming wrapped up in him. She became something tangible, her soft skin under his fingertips grounding him as he slipped his hands underneath the hem of her tank top to hold onto her hips. She ran her fingers through his hair repeatedly, turning to press a slow kiss to his temple, then a few more to his cheek, then his jaw. 

“I love you so much, Jake.” He nodded, burying his face further in her shoulder, wrapping his arms around her just a little tighter. “I’m sorry that I yelled at you, and I’m sorry that I didn’t talk to you about this before I brought it up with Captain Holt. I was afraid because I knew you wouldn’t like it, and I thought if Holt was on my side, then maybe you would be, too.” 

He pulled back enough that he could look into her eyes, momentarily unconcerned about the fact that the edges of his vision were slightly blurred with beginnings of unshed tears collecting in his own eyes. “I’m always gonna be on your side, Amy. I know you can handle yourself. I just… I can’t…” 

“I need you to trust me, Jake.” 

“I do. Of course I do.” 

“Okay.” She nodded, her thumb stroking along his cheekbone. Her voice was soft. “Then if it ever comes down to that, I need you to let me do my job.”

He nodded, his eyes aimed down at her lap and still viciously fighting the tears that wanted to escape him. His voice betrayed him a little more this time, and she pulled his head back into her shoulder, comforting fingers working back through his hair. 

“Okay,” he whispered. “If Holt changes his mind, I will back you one-hundred percent. I mean, I won’t like it, but I’ll do whatever I can to support you, even if I hate every second of it. And I will, by the way. Hate it.” 

She laughed softly. They held each other that way for a few minutes, just silently absorbing each other. She adjusted to lean her head on his shoulder, her fingers scratching gently through the hair at the nape of his neck. 

“You know, I can’t promise you that nothing will ever happen to me, Jake. Being a cop, and dating a cop… is harder than I thought it would be. I worry about you, too.” Her hand slipped out of his hair and moved to his jaw, her fingers tracing the angle. “But I’m not going to make choices that I think will take me away from you. And I don’t think you’d make choices like that, either.” 

He leaned into her shoulder again. “I’m sorry. For arguing with you in front of Holt. And not trusting you. And just reacting like that.” 

“It’s okay. I get it. I don’t want to think about a world without you, either.” Her arms wrapped a little tighter around his neck. “I love you.” 

“I love you, too.” 

She pulled back enough that she could look at him, then she gave him a quick, chaste kiss. He leaned his forehead against hers, then pulled her in for another kiss, a little slower. He breathed her in, his tongue tracing against hers until a quiet sound built up in the back of his throat, her responding giggles breaking up their kiss. She pushed against his shoulders, tipping him back into the mattress and continuing to laugh into his shoulder. 

“What are you laughing at?” He smiled against her neck, his fingers creeping up to find the ticklish spot on her ribs. She squirmed in his arms, her laughter doubling as she tried to wriggle away from him. He murmured against her neck, a teasing edge in his voice. “What’s so funny now? Hmm?”

His fingers stilled when she stretched to kiss him—soft and warm and intentional. Her fingers weaved through his hair, gently twirling through his curls. He hummed into the kiss, his hands sliding up her back and keeping her close. And just like that, none of their problems mattered anymore. She had a way of doing that, of making him forget how bad things felt sometimes. This case was taking up almost all of their waking moments, and when it wasn’t, it was only because they were working other cases, too. But even when the world sometimes felt like it was burning around him, she was there. 

Sometimes it was her words. Sometimes it was simply her presence. Sometimes it was making out with her at the foot of their bed, an unspoken, mutual understanding that it wasn’t going any further than hands wandering over clothes tonight. They’d make out for half an hour like horny teenagers, then they’d sit on the kitchen floor and eat grilled cheese for dinner, and he’d take the one that was a little burnt on one side because he distracted himself with telling her a story in the middle of making it. There were two garment bags in the back of their closet that they still hadn’t gotten around to using, now four months after the day that they’d missed those reservations. He swore he was going to get around to rescheduling, but every time he thought about it, the ribbon case threw them for another loop. 

She deserved a real night out, but they didn’t _need_ a night out like that. They had each other, and it didn’t matter where they were or what they were doing, that was always enough for him. She was always enough for him. 

So those four months passed, and then his birthday came and went. He didn’t do Charles’s eleven step plan like he’d promised because they spent the entire day chasing what they thought was a lead, but ended up being yet another dead end. He’d allowed himself to be hopeful since he’d had a good birthday two years in a row—maybe this lead wouldn’t be useless like every other lead they’d gotten in the past damn near year and a half of working this case. It was useless and he was pissed, but Amy held his hand on the way home, and by the time they were walking through the door to their apartment, all the anger had dissolved out of him. 

He was left feeling disappointed and a little sad, but she ordered pizza canoes—which he exclusively called them now, just to tease her—and she turned on Die Hard in bed, and he fell asleep with an arm around her waist and his head on her chest before McClane and Gruber were even face-to-face. The day had shown them a major setback in the case, and yet she still managed to turn it into a day that, overall, he’d call good. She didn’t just make it better, she made it _good_. 

Even the worst days. 

And he did the same for her. 

Another month passed, then another, then another. It seemed like each passing day wore down on them more than the last, and those garment bags were all but entirely forgotten in the back of their closet. 

“I don’t have _time,”_ Amy muttered, her finger hovering over the ignore button on her phone. Her brothers had been calling her all day. Benji called while she was in the shower, and she muttered about how if it was that important, he would have left a message. She’d woken up in a bad mood—as was the trend for both of them lately, eight months since the green ribbon murder and not a _single_ working theory. They _had_ theories. Theories upon theories _upon_ theories, but none of them ever held up. There was always something, always a problem, an outlier that couldn’t be explained, a common thread that was missing. 

“Babe, just pick up the phone.” He craned over to see the screen. “That’s the second time Benj has called you. And Julian, Eli, _and_ Tony have called, too. What if something’s wrong?” 

“They’re probably all just arguing again. You remember three weeks ago when they wouldn’t stop calling me and it was just because they were arguing about who let our Abuelo’s cat out of the house when we were kids?” She scoffed. “I told them not to call me at work anymore.”

“Ames.” Jake raised his eyebrows at her. “But they _are_ calling you at work, so don’t you think that might mean it could be more serious? Ignoring it isn’t going to make the problem go away.” He paused for a moment, but she didn’t look up at him. “You want me to talk to him for you?” 

She rolled her eyes, glaring at him as she answered the phone call. _“What_ do you want, _Benjamin?”_

He watched her, his expression shifting from curiosity to concern. It happened very slowly. First, her lips just barely slipped apart. Her expression looked blank, but then her eyebrows were pulling together and the crease that formed there was too deep to just be caused by her brothers and their typical shenanigans. Then it was almost like watching a cartoon. The color drained from her face slowly, leaving her this pale, sickly color that he was positive he’d never seen on her before, even that time a few months ago when she was sick as hell and made him sleep in the guest room for a week so at least one of them was healthy enough to work the case. 

“I, uh…” She shook her head wildly, her eyes jumping from place to place, never settling anywhere for more than a second, completely avoiding Jake’s face. She reached out, steadying herself with a hand against his chest. “What happened?” 

Jake held her shoulders, trying to be a steadying presence while she received whatever news he hadn’t yet been included in. She sucked in a sharp breath, and he watched the tears well up in her eyes. Her voice shook. “When? Is he…?” She paused a moment, listening. He rubbed her back as she leaned into him, still listening to whatever Benji was saying. “I’m at work, I didn’t… But is he gonna be okay? Benji. No— _Ben.”_

She held the phone out to Jake a moment later. 

He kept his eyes on her as he accepted it, but the second the phone was out of her hand, her face was completely hidden in his chest as she tried to hold back tears. He wrapped his free arm around her, trying to comfort her as he spoke to Benji. 

“Benj? What’s going—”

“It’s Dad. He uh…” Benji took a deep breath. “He had a heart attack this morning. He collapsed. Mom had to call an ambulance, it’s been a whole ordeal.” 

“Oh my god.” 

“Yeah. Uh…” He trailed off for a moment, and Jake pressed his lips to Amy’s forehead as he held her, his hand rubbing soothing circles between her shoulder blades. “I really think you guys should get here. Try not to worry Amy, you know how she gets… But things don’t exactly look great. The faster you can get here, the better.”

Jake squeezed his eyes shut, resisting the urge to shake his head. Amy had been ignoring their phone calls, and if something happened before they made it to the hospital… “Yeah. Okay.” Jake released his own shaky breath. “We’ll see you soon. Hey—” He paused a moment, waiting to make sure Benji was still on the line. “Love you. Hang in there.” 

“Love you guys,” he replied automatically. “Jake? Hurry. Please.”

As soon as he hung up, he guided Amy to a chair. “Okay, okay, you sit down here for a sec, I’m gonna go tell Holt that we’re leaving—”

“We can’t—” She shook her head. “You have to stay.” 

“Amy.” He held both of her shoulders gently, bending down so he was at her level where she was sitting. “I’m coming with you. This case hasn’t had a solid lead in months, it won’t fall apart without us for a day.” 

“It isn’t that serious, I can go by myself.” 

“Babe.” He shifted one hand from her shoulder to gently touch her cheek, rubbing away a stray tear. “Sit down here, please. Let me do this.”

She held his gaze for a moment, then reluctantly nodded. He glanced at her out Holt’s office window as he explained everything to him—just to make sure she didn’t jump up and leave without him while he was gone. He didn’t _think_ she was going to, but he wouldn’t have been entirely surprised if she had. 

He held her hand on the center console the entire trip to the hospital, and she just stared silently out the window the whole way. Her free hand fidgeted in her lap, moving to the handle on the inside of the door and gripping it, then shifting back to pull at her shirtsleeve. She was nervous, and from the sounds of it, she was right to be. 

They followed Benji’s directions to get to the correct waiting room. Jake pulled Amy into his arms in the elevator, practically crushing her into him. He wrapped his arms around her shoulders, boxing her in as best as he could. If he could shield her from whatever they were about to walk into, he would, but he just had to settle for kissing the side of her face and whispering that everything was going to be okay until her breathing steadied a little. 

There was a sort of tension when they walked into the waiting room. A moment passed where none of her family noticed them, so they just had a second to observe everyone. There wasn’t a single person in the room that looked okay. 

Luke sat furthest to the left, his legs pulled up into his chair. His arms rested on his knees, propping his head up and staring at the tv, silently playing a rerun of some old sitcom. His eyes flicked back and forth, following the subtitles, but he didn’t seem to really be paying attention. Julian and Mateo were having some sort of quiet conversation. They were on the other side of the room, leaned toward each other, whispering. Mateo was gesturing wildly, but Jake couldn’t get any sort of context from what he was looking at. 

Benji looked the most exhausted. He lived closest to their parents, so while Camila probably called David first, Benji was probably the one who had to head over there at 5am. Despite him being the fourth youngest, Jake was pretty certain that he was also the one who handled telling all the other siblings.

David sat next to Camila, his hand on hers. She had her eyes closed, leaning back in the chair. Though most of Amy’s particular, proper personality traits came directly from Camila, she was usually a pretty lively person. It was strange to see her slumped back in her chair, a shell of the woman he was used to being around. His heart ached for her. He couldn’t imagine what it must feel like to face losing someone you’ve been married to for over forty years, someone you’ve built an entire family with. He couldn’t imagine going through that with Amy, and they’d only been dating for a little over a year and a half. 

Eli had his face in his phone, no doubt reading all about the procedure their father was going through. He’d always been the more analytical of the Santiago children, and while he hadn’t gone into healthcare for his career, he spent a lot of time reading about the field even when the information didn’t pertain to him. Tony was on the phone, presumably with his wife.

Amy took a deep, shaky breath. 

“Hey,” Jake whispered, pulling her back against him. His soft voice caught everyone’s attention, and they all looked up at them. 

The second her family recognized them standing there, the room was buzzing with activity. Benji and Julian made it to them first, of course. They were split apart, pulled into two separate hugs—Benji hugging Amy and Julian hugging Jake. 

Over the past year and a half, Jake had grown pretty close to Amy’s family. He went from having no siblings to having more siblings than he could possibly comprehend—some of which were due to the revelation of his father’s many secret children, but seven of them were the brothers that he’d gained through his relationship with Amy. 

They’d accepted him and made a space for him in the family from the very beginning, and it was something that got him a little worked up if he thought too hard about it all. They welcomed him all that time ago when he’d unknowingly walked into a blind date with her and her entire family, and half a year later when he saw them again as Amy’s official boyfriend, they were all so excited to see him. He hadn’t exactly expected them to be so welcoming that time around, but there were hugs from each brother and by the time they got around to teasing him about storming out of the house with lipstick on his neck that day, he felt comfortable enough that he even laughed with them. He had a place with them. He was in a group text that was started so they could all ask him questions about what to get Amy for Christmas, but that had quickly morphed into them inviting him into their family completely separate from Amy.

\- 

**Tony:** Jake wyd?? Wanna help me prank David?

 **Tony:** fuck is this the chain that David’s on

 **Tony:** lemme switch to the one without him and i’ll explain

A few moments later, he got a text from Tony outside of the group text (coined _Santiagbros_ which, _yeah_ , was dumb, but _he was part of it!_ —and it didn’t hurt that he was the first of any of Amy’s boyfriends to ever make it into a group text with the brothers, much less one where they basically said he was one of them). 

**Tony:** that was the whole prank, lol. Now he’s gonna think we have a separate group chat that you’re in but he’s not and it’s gonna kill him lmao

David texted Jake sixteen times asking about the other group chat until he finally gave in and told him there was no other group chat. Tony then informed him that _ha_ , he was actually pranking _both of them_ , because he knew David would harass Jake about it and he wanted to see how long Jake would last before he ruined the “prank.” _Way longer than I would’ve, dude._

There was also the odd: 

**Eli:** Mets game this weekend? Me and Benj have an extra tix if ur not busy

 **Eli:** don’t tell Luke tho

-

 **Benji:** Ames said you like that shawarma place on 36th, leggo I’m outside your apartment

 **Benji:** leave her home tho I want brother time, tell her I’ll bring her back extra spicy hummus

 **Mateo:** benji what the fuck u literally have to drive past my apartment to get to them am i not brother enough for u bitch??? 

**Mateo:** y’all are wack. i called amy and we’re getting your fav italian BENJI. and we’re watching die hard JAKE. just to spite you

 **Mateo:** stop ignoring me that’s not how spite works

 **Mateo:** u could’ve texted him outside of the gc u bitch

-

 **Jules:** I heard you guys got switches??? Add my friend code but also pls kick amy’s ass on mario kart thanks

 **Mateo:** ignore him he’s mad because he’s never beaten her at mario kart

 **Jules:** probz bc she always takes fucking yoshi and we all know he’s mine. make her fucking cry peralta

 **Luke:** you better not make my sister cry

 **Jules:** yeah if you make her cry i’ll have to fight you i think

 **Mateo:** PLEASE jake would kick your ass worse than amy kicks your ass in mario kart

 **Jules:** FUCK OFF 

**Jake:** you guys i have something important to say

 **Jake:** wario fucking cheats

-

He hadn’t known that he’d been missing out on things like that, but he was glad to have them now. Brothers. He’d dated girls with siblings before, but he’d never fit into a family so easily, so comfortably, so _happily_. 

Moments like this were new, though. He clapped his hand on Benji’s back as he hugged him. “You okay, man?” 

Benji pulled him off to the side a bit, both of them watching Julian pull Amy over to Mateo and Eli. Benji stared at Amy a beat longer, then pulled Jake a few steps further away for good measure. 

“He’s, uh, in surgery.” Benji swallowed, then nodded. They both looked over at Amy, who had her eyebrows drawn together in a way that clearly meant she knew Benj was up to something with dragging Jake off by himself. Julian grabbed her elbow, steering her toward Camila. “Julian’s keeping Amy busy so I can talk to you, but you know he’s not gonna last long.” 

Jake put his hand on Benji’s shoulder, prompting him to finally look at his face again. “What can I do?” 

Benji shook his head. “Look, I’m sure I don’t have to tell you this… but they’ve always been pretty close. And if something happens during this surgery…” His voice shook, and he paused to swallow again. “Amy didn’t get to see him before he went in there, and things didn’t sound great… There’s a blockage, I don’t—El knows more about it than me.” 

He took a deep breath, looking over at Amy once again. His voice was considerably softer when he continued. “She’s going to be really hard on herself. And, uhm, I can’t fix it, if that happens. I’ve seen her really beat herself up over something before, and… She’s just… she’s really gonna need you, Jake. Even if she says she doesn’t.” 

“Hey.” Jake shook his head. “I promise you that Amy is not on the list of things you need to worry about today. I’m here.” Jake nodded, and Benji reluctantly nodded along with him. “I know you guys are, like, best friends. And I know you’re going to worry about her anyways, but I’m not going anywhere. I promise. I’ve got her, no matter what happens in there.” 

Benji let out a slow breath, nodding his head a little more surely. “Thank you.” He nodded again, like he was still trying to convince himself he didn’t have to worry about it. “Seriously, man.” He clapped his hand on Jake’s shoulder, pulling him in for another half hug. “Thank you.”

Jake held onto his shoulder for a minute as they pulled back out of the hug. “But hey, Benji…” He shrugged. “Being there for Amy isn’t, like, _work_ for me. That’s just a part of my life.” He shifted his gaze onto Amy, watched as she nodded at whatever David said, then leaned her head on her mom’s shoulder. He looked back at Benji, shaking his head like he hadn’t meant to stare for such a long moment. “If there’s anything else I can do, or if you need anything, ya’know. I’m here for you guys.” 

“What’s going on?” Amy asked. Jake and Benji both jumped apart, startled by her presence next to them. 

“Nothing!” Benji replied automatically, offering her a tense smile and handling it in an even less chill way than Jake would have. 

Jake shook his head, turning to face Amy more fully. “Are you okay?” 

She narrowed her eyes and looked between the two of them, then raised her eyebrows at Jake. 

“Did they tell you everything?” Benji swooped into her other side so that she was sandwiched between the two of them with his arm around her shoulders and Jake’s arm around her waist. 

“They said the surgery is supposed to take another three hours.”

“That’s all they said?” Benji scoffed, getting a little louder and directing the next part at their brothers. “You guys suck.” 

He watched her face as Benji explained everything to her. She’d always been so expressive, and he could see every little fraction of emotion on her face. The heartbreak, the guilt, the shame, the fear, the sadness—all of it mingling across her features until her eyes were welling up with tears and Benji was looking at Jake with wide eyes as she buried her face in his chest. Jake shushed her softly, shifting in his seat to make more space for her, raking his fingers through her hair, kissing her forehead. 

Normally she’d brush off this kind of attention with all of her brothers around, fully aware that they’d be a teasing target for weeks over this kind of physical affection. She paid no attention to any of her brothers, tucking her face into Jake’s hoodie and hanging onto him like she was afraid he might disappear. He held her long after her tears stopped, her brothers taking turns sitting next to them and trying to find some way to distract her from the situation at hand. Watching her brothers with her during moments like this filled him with this renewed warmth for them. All the teasing and arguing aside, he knew that every single one of them would have her back in any situation, and it made him love them even more. 

When the three more hours in surgery turned into six more hours in surgery, everyone was getting a bit anxious. Jake watched as Amy bypassed every stop on the Santiago Panic Scale and went straight into the fidgety denial phase that normally existed _after_ she went through the panic scale. He knew how to handle it when he’d already gotten a handle on the Great American Songbook, but he was thrown off by the _this isn’t happening_ fidgeting without any of the early indicators. 

The doctor made it out to speak with them before he figured out how to handle it. 

He was okay. He wasn’t awake, but he was okay. Everyone had the opportunity to go see him, but Amy and Jake waited in the waiting room. Camila stayed in the room with him while all of the brothers filtered in and out of the room. After everybody else had gone in there, Benji finally convinced Camila that it would be okay for her to leave for a few hours to get a little bit of rest, considering she’d had such a long, stressful day. One of them would stay, he’d promised. 

Amy immediately volunteered. 

“It’s not a big deal,” she announced, her voice only wavering slightly. He wondered if her brothers caught the tiny shaking, too. 

He knew her well enough to know that she just didn’t want her brothers walking in while she went through the motions of facing all of the emotions she was still clinging to. 

“Yeah.” Jake shrugged, trying to reassure Camila as she looked on with unsure eyes. “And we can give you guys a call if anything changes.” 

“We’re not far, Ma.” Julian took her hand, trying to lead her closer to the door. “Benji’s right. You need some real food and some sleep. Dad’s okay.” 

She shooed all of her sons away until David came over to try his hand at convincing her. Her annoyed expression softened at his convincing, and after a few more tries from a few more brothers, they were finally ushering her out the door. 

“Give me a call if _anything_ changes,” Benji directed. “Anything, Jake. With Dad or with Amy.” 

“You’re just as bad as your mom, you know.” Benji scoffed, but he smiled. “I will. I promise.” 

“Thank you.” 

“Yeah. You get some sleep, too. I’ll get a hold of one of you if I need to.” 

“Yeah. You guys should try to get a little sleep, too. That couch didn’t look super comfortable, but…” He made a face. “Are you sure you don’t just want me to stay?” 

“I think Amy would hurt one of us if we changed her plan after the day she’s had.” 

Benji laughed softly. “You’re right. Okay. Make sure she’s good.” 

“She’s gonna be fine. Get out of here before your mom changes her mind.” 

“Oh my god, you’re right.” He looked out the door, craning his neck to see further into the parking lot. “I’ll text you guys later.” 

Jake laughed as Benji practically sprinted out the door. He made his way back up Victor’s hospital room pretty quickly, expecting Amy to already be inside, but instead, she was leaning against the wall next to the door. 

“Ames?” Jake shook his head, walking over and lightly grabbing her shoulder. “Hey, what’s wrong?” 

Her eyebrows pulled together, her jaw clenching as she looked at him. 

“Hey,” he repeated. “It’s okay. I’m right here.” 

She shook her head, her palm moving up to his chest. “What if he doesn’t wake up?” 

He pulled her into his arms, his fingers repeatedly brushing through her hair. She hid her face in his shoulder. He held her until her breathing seemed to return to a normal rate, and then he pulled back. His hand moved to her cheek, where his thumb traced along her cheekbone. “We gotta go in there, babe. And we have to stay positive, and if something bad happens, we’ll handle it when we get there.” 

She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch, but she didn’t say anything. 

“Hey.” He raised his eyebrows, leaning a little closer, his eyes big and earnest. “You’re not doing this alone.”

She held his eye contact for a moment. Her hand covered his on her cheek as she nodded. “I love you.” 

“I love _you.”_ He pressed a quick kiss to her forehead. “You can do this.” 

She nodded again, taking a deep, steadying breath. She laced her fingers with his, then pulled him into the room with her. 

The emotion of it all got to be too much for her pretty quickly. She always got exhausted when she cried, and she’d cried quite a bit throughout the day. He held her in his arms in the waiting room for hours, keeping her mostly calm, but when they were all alone in the room with her dad—it finally came crashing down on her.

She cried a lot more when she actually saw him, looking pale and just so _strange_. He always had such a commanding presence, and he just looked so small in the hospital bed, wires and tubes poking out of him here and there. He didn’t look like her dad, and the whole scene was unsettling enough for Jake, so he couldn’t even imagine how she must have been feeling.

It took a while, but he finally got her to relax again. After the initial check (and immediate heartbreak at the state they found him in), they settled into the couch on the other side of the room. He focused on the beeping of the heart monitor, his hand rubbing against her back in time with the rhythmic beeping. After about another twenty minutes of him holding her, she was asleep against his chest.

So he just continued to hold her. 

She could use the extra sleep on a normal day. She’d been having trouble sleeping lately. He’d wake up to find her poring over notes on the case, or staring at the ceiling while she tried to piece things together, or just tossing and turning restlessly.

He was leaned back a bit, angled so that she was sort of laying on top of him, her legs curled up in his lap and her hand gripping onto his shirt the way she often did when she got sleepy. He’d kicked off one of his shoes, propping his foot up on the couch so that she was kind of boxed in with his thigh behind her back, her sock clad toes tucked underneath his other thigh. They were sort of tangled together in a way that he guessed looked uncomfortable, but he couldn’t think of anything he’d rather be doing than holding her like this. 

He wasn’t sure how long they stayed that way. He held her. He hummed a song when a new one popped into his head. He played with her hair, pressing kisses to the top of her head every now and then. He’d play on his phone, his hand tracing back and forth across her back, and despite how strange it was to be so close to Victor looking like that, her breath falling evenly against his collarbone and her familiar weight on his chest… it just felt normal. 

“Jake.” 

The gruff, yet weak voice caught him off guard, and he looked up at Victor, startled. He quickly tucked his phone away. “Sir!”

Amy stirred against him at the abrupt sound of his voice, so he pulled back to angle his face, assessing her. She was still asleep. He looked back at Victor, considerably quieter. “Sir!”

Victor laughed quietly. “What’s going on?”

“Uh…” Jake looked around, his eyes falling on the call button to Victor’s left. “I don’t know if I should be the one to tell you everything?” 

Victor waved his hand dismissively. “The doctors will be here when you leave. Let’s just keep them out of this for now.” Jake didn’t seem so sure, so Victor continued. “I assume the boys convinced Camila to let them take her home?” 

“Oh, yeah. I should probably call Benj and let him know you’re awake—”

“Wait just a minute,” Victor directed quietly. “I want to talk to you.” 

Jake froze, his hand carefully sliding his phone back into his pocket where he was already in the process of pulling it out. “I’m sorry, sir… Is something wrong?” 

Victor was staring at him in that way that he did, his eyes narrowed and his eyebrows furrowed, and Jake suddenly felt compelled to confess every bad thing he’d ever done. He swallowed, trying hard to keep his eyes on Victor’s despite his desire to look anywhere else. His free hand moved back to Amy’s hair, his fingers gently brushing against her scalp. Victor followed the movement with assessing eyes, and while he felt that he was being judged for it, he didn’t stop touching her. 

“You know,” Victor began slowly, “Benji has always been my responsible son. The one who always handled things with the rest of the kids whenever there was a problem—even when they were young.” He nodded slowly. “David was always my trouble starter. He always knew exactly how to pick at each of his siblings, and it was like he couldn’t resist an opportunity to prove it. Benji was always the little mediator. Tony was my fighter. The boy has a temper on him, and he’d fight anyone—” He paused to laugh. “—even tried to fight me, once. Elijah was the scientist of the family. He was always asking questions, testing theories and experimenting with anything and everything. That caused its fair share of problems with all the kids—quite a few ruined belongings because Eli wondered what would happen if he submerged that thing in water.” 

He shook his head again, looking up at the ceiling, probably picturing memories that Jake hadn’t been present for. “The twins were always a tornado. They build off of each other even now, feeding each other’s energies. They’re so similar in some ways, but so different in others. Julian has such a big heart, is probably the most loyal man I’ve ever met in my life. Mateo is more guarded, while Jule would trust anyone with anything.” He smiled to himself. “Luke’s my free spirit. He’s always had such a big personality. There’s nothing he wouldn’t try. I swear he’s almost killed Camila a handful of times with his craziness. He could start a conversation with anyone, has done so with strangers in every place he’s ever been practically since the day he was born.”

Jake blinked at Victor, trying to follow the connection in all of the explanations. He was being hit with a lot of emotion all at once—affection for the people he now considered family, a feeling that sort of resembled jealousy at the thought of a father who knew each of his children so well, but most notably—confusion. Where was this going? 

“And then there’s my Amy.” Victor gestured to the woman sleeping in his arms. “That girl is my whole world.” 

The corner of Jake’s lips tipped up into a soft smile. He knew that feeling. 

“When we found out we were having a girl, I was so worried. We already had four boys, and then all of a sudden we had this girl on the way. I knew she’d never have to worry about some dumb boy bothering her, what with all these brothers, but _all these brothers!”_ Victor shook his head. “You know, I always thought girls were so soft and sweet, and our boys were so rambunctious, so wild and rough and how was she going to fit into all of that?” 

Victor looked at his sleeping daughter with a fondness in his eyes that made Jake feel warm all over—love for her, gratitude for him, happiness that she had someone who cared about her that much. 

“She has proven me wrong about everything I ever thought I knew. She’s strong and she’s brave and she’s so damn smart. She’s a big thinker, always has been. She never settles, always sets her dreams to the highest places, and doesn’t let anything stop her from getting back up when she falls. She has the biggest heart—maybe even bigger than Julian’s—even when she sometimes struggles to let people in. She gave each and every one of my boys a run for their money, while simultaneously loving them and caring for them in a way that none of the boys could ever really seem to grasp the way that she could. Her relationship with each one of them is so different from their relationships with each other, even Benji, who’s _everybody’s_ favorite brother.” Jake and Victor both laughed at that. “Her relationship with the _world_ is so different than what I’d ever seen and what I was used to, and she’s taught me so much about things I’d never even thought about before I had her. She’s _special,_ Jake.”

He felt another swell of emotion, now for the woman still sleeping peacefully against his chest, blissfully unaware of everything happening around her. He nodded. Victor seemed to be searching for words, so he swallowed back his emotion, waiting. 

“I’ve seen Amy fall for people before. I held her hand when she walked through the doors on the first day of kindergarten and laid eyes on her first love—her kindergarten teacher, Mr. Casey. I held her through her first heartbreak, when she was thirteen and that boy kissed her at her middle school dance, then high-fived his friends, laughing and calling her a nerd. I stood back and watched as she got older and didn’t always want me and my hugs and my advice at the first sign of a problem in her love life, but I have always been here. She always comes to me _eventually_ , with questions and stories and eyes full of hope and love and care, when she meets a guy or things didn’t go as planned or she’s not in love like she thought she was. I’ve seen it all, and I’ve been there for it all.” 

He took another deep breath, his gaze going from somewhere far away back to Jake’s face. “But I’ve never seen anything like the way she looks at you.” 

There was a long beat of silence, both men staring at each other. Jake was almost taken aback by the conviction in Victor’s voice. He wasn’t sure if Victor had more to say, and when he didn’t begin speaking again and Jake realized that it was his turn, he had a bit of trouble finding his voice. 

“She, uhm…” Jake trailed off, pulling her just the slightest bit closer. “She makes me feel good about the world and my place in it.” 

Victor nodded, his expression unreadable. He hesitated slightly. “I’m not always going to be here for her, Jake.” 

Jake swallowed again, finally understanding where this was all going. 

“I guess I just want to know that she’s going to be okay,” Victor continued, avoiding Jake’s eyes. “I like you, Jake. And I want to know that when I’m not here…” He trailed off, his voice shaking with emotion. “...that I can count on you to be here for her. Because she’s strong, and she’s brave, and she’s hardworking and persevering and just…” He let out a slow breath. “I’m in awe of my daughter every day. But there’s more to her than she lets on, and she doesn’t always let people know when she’s hurting and she doesn’t always ask for help when she needs it. And I want to know that you see her. She can handle everything all on her own, but she shouldn’t have to.” He pulled at his IV, trying to adjust it. “I don’t know about you, but… I think she’s pretty serious about this relationship.” 

“Sir…” Jake trailed off, struggling once again to find words to describe the insurmountable feelings he had for her. “I have never loved another person the way that I love your daughter. I have never been this serious about anything. Not even Die Hard.” He took a deep breath, his eyes flicking to the ground when Victor raised an eyebrow at him. “I would do anything for her.” He paused for a moment, backtracking a little. “I would do anything for any of your kids—”

“Even David?” 

Jake chuckled. “Okay, maybe not _anything_ for David, but probably most things. But especially for Amy. I would do _anything_ , Mr. Santiago.” His voice trailed off into something softer, more reflective. “She’s so smart and pretty and—just the most incredible person I know.” 

“You challenge her.” Victor noted quietly. 

“She challenges me. All the time. And she makes me better? Like, I thought I was just fine before I met her, but she somehow just keeps making me better than before?” He laughed breathlessly, tipping his head down to look at her face as he continued. “She’s everything I never even knew I wanted. And as long as she’ll have me, I’m not going anywhere.” 

Victor made a face that Jake wouldn’t quite call a smile. He was tentative as he chose his next words. “And what if she won’t have you?” 

“I…?” Jake raised an eyebrow, tilting his head, then shaking it slowly. “I don’t think I know what you mean.” 

Victor sighed. “When things get tough, because at some point, they _will_ —you said as long as she’ll have you. What will you do if she won’t?” 

Jake shook his head again, his eyes dropping to the floor. His eyebrows drew together as he thought. What was he looking for? Did he want him to say that he wouldn’t let up, even if she asked him to? Did he want him to say he’d leave if that’s what she wanted? Was there a right answer? 

He sighed, finally deciding that—surprisingly—the easiest thing he could do is just talk about how he feels. 

“You know, Mr. Santiago…” He took a deep breath. “Amy has taught me a lot about—” He paused, shaking his head and laughing softly. “—really, just… _everything_ in the past year and a half. And we’ve had hard moments, and we’ve fought, and I know that there’s a good chance that we’ll run into problems in the future that we couldn’t even imagine right now, but… I’m not afraid. I love her, and I trust her, and I know that at the end of the day, we have each other. We’re _here_ for each other. And maybe…” He laughed again, looking down and brushing Amy’s hair away from her forehead, tucking it behind her ear. He smiled as her eyelids fluttered, probably dreaming about sergeant’s exams or organization techniques or, if he’s lucky, him. “Maybe that’s naive of me.” His gaze flickered back up to Victor’s face. “But I’m not worried about the future, because I’m facing it with her.”

Victor eyed him curiously, and just as he was about to open his mouth to speak, Jake began talking again. 

“And, ya’know… Of all the things I’ve learned since I started dating—or, really, since I _met_ Amy—probably the most important thing has been something that we’re learning together. Which,” he shook his head, “hasn’t always been easy _especially_ for her. No matter how much you plan, it seems like life has a way of just… going on. And we’ve been here for each other at every wrong turn, and at every right turn, and, just, at every moment in between. And I really think that’s just all I could ever hope for.” He hesitated. “And I’m sorry if that’s not a real answer, and I’m sorry if this is disrespectful, but I kind of think it’s a stupid question.” Victor raised his eyebrows and Jake quickly looked away so he wouldn’t lose his nerve. “Because who knows? I can’t, like, guess stuff like that or say for sure what I would do _if_ something like that happened. All I can do is be here. And hold her. And love her.” He shrugged, wrapping one arm around her shoulders, the other settling back into her hair. He tucked his face closer to her forehead as he finished, like the final words were meant only for her. “And we’ll figure the rest out as we go.” 

Victor stared at him for a long moment. Jake averted his eyes, his focus switching back to Amy, her even breathing. He tried to ground himself, to breathe in time with her, but all he could think about was the way he could feel Victor watching him. He cleared his throat quietly. 

“Can I call Benji now?” 

After a beat of silence, Jake looked up. Victor nodded, his expression still unreadable. 

“Cool,” he murmured. He’d probably fucked things up with Amy’s dad, who he was still a little bit terrified of. He smoothed his fingers across Amy’s jaw, gently tipping her face away from him. She hummed, clutching closer to him by his shirt. She nuzzled further into his neck. He laughed softly, adjusting his grip on her. “Ames. Hey, wake up, babe.”

“Mmmm.” She grumbled quietly. He ran his knuckles along her cheek, grinning down at her as her eyes fluttered open to stare grumpily at him. “I don’t wanna.” 

“Your dad’s awake, Ames.”

Her eyebrows scrunched up at that, confusion written all across her face. She seemed to focus on her surroundings a bit, and he watched as realization flooded her expression. She raised her eyebrows, turning to look at her dad, then quickly clambering off of Jake’s lap, rushing over to sit on the edge of the hospital bed. 

“Dad?” She reached out for his hands, simultaneously touching his face, like she was trying to make sure he was really there. “Are you okay?”

Victor smiled at her, taking both of her hands in his. “I’m okay, honey.” 

Jake watched them for a moment, smiling as Amy assessed her father. His smile faltered a bit when Victor looked at him. 

“I’m gonna, uh, go out there and call your brothers.” He announced. 

Amy turned to flash that brilliant smile at him, and it was perfectly fine if he’d made Victor hate him, because she was happy, and Victor was okay, and that was all that mattered. 

“Thank you, Jake,” Victor said quietly, his eyes back on Amy again as she fidgeted with his IV, untangling it from where he’d pulled at it. Jake smiled, nodding at him as he stepped out of the room. 

He called Benji first, assuring him that he’d make the calls to Tony, Eli, Luke, and Mateo, since they’d all gone their separate ways. He paused in the middle of his conversation with Mateo to ask a nurse how likely it was that someone who’d just woken up from anesthesia would forget a conversation where their daughter’s boyfriend maybe said something stupid. _If he seemed pretty lucid, he’ll probably remember_ wasn’t quite the answer he had been looking for. He spent a few minutes talking to each brother, and he was just finishing up with Luke when Amy stepped out of the room. 

“Hey,” she said softly. 

He smiled. “Hey. You doing okay?” 

She stepped closer, slipping into his arms and taking a deep breath when he squeezed her a little closer. “Yeah. I think I’m okay. You?” 

He nodded against her head, then pulled back, his hands steadying her shoulders as he looked at her. He shook his head, a grin spreading across his face. She was a little disheveled, what with the crying and the sleeping on his shoulder for the better part of the past two hours, but she was gorgeous. “I’m good. You look beautiful.” 

She laughed quietly. “I love you, Jake.” 

“I love you, Ames. Always.” 

She leaned her forehead on his for a moment, then abruptly stepped back, looking at him as if something had just occurred to her. “Hey, what’d you say to my dad, by the way?” 

Jake shook his head, scoffing and trying to appear nonchalant. “What do you mean? Did he say something?” 

Amy shrugged, looking up at him, then glancing over at the door. “He said I found a good one and that I should hold onto you.” Jake raised his eyebrows, trying not to look as shocked as he felt. “And when I asked him what happened, he said he just really likes you. Not that he didn’t like you before, but that was just, like, the first thing he said to me after he woke up from open heart surgery, so I thought that was kind of strange…”

Jake shook his head, pulling her into his arms and holding her tight. “I have no idea. But I love you. And I’m glad he’s okay.” 

She pulled back, her hands framing his face as she looked at him. “I love you, too. Thank you for staying with me.” 

He pulled her hands off of his face, holding them in his own and rubbing his thumbs over her knuckles. “Couldn’t imagine being anywhere else right now.” 

And he couldn’t. 

He could never imagine being anywhere but wherever he was with her. 

Even when wherever he was with her was staring at the wall for the ninth day in a row, the anniversary of the murder fast approaching with nothing that even resembled a lead in sight. Amy kept pushing for volunteering as bait, but without a solid suspect, that wouldn’t have even worked if Holt _did_ support it (which, much to her dismay, he didn’t). 

“I know how invested you are in this case,” Holt began. There were five days left until the anniversary. “That’s exactly why you need to take the day off tomorrow.” 

Jake scoffed. “Absolutely not.” 

“Sir, that’s in _sane,”_ Amy backed him up. “Tomorrow there will only be four days left until the anniversary. Four days until he murders someone else. We need every bit of time we can get.” 

“You _need_ to take a break so that you can be at your best for the final three days. That’s the real crunch time, and we’re going to need you both at your best. You’ve both been working too much and—”

“No,” Jake interrupted. “We have to be here.” 

“You’re taking the day off, Peralta. That’s a direct order.” 

“But sir—”

“No. Both of you will take a day off. I am specifically requesting that you make some time for relaxation.” Jake groaned, and Holt eyed him seriously. “Kevin and I had a reservation for Project Benoit tomorrow night. We’ve discussed it, and we want you two to use the reservation.” 

“I’m so sorry, sir, but I don’t think I’m going to be able to have a relaxing dinner at a nice restaurant knowing that this guy might be choosing his next victim at any moment.” 

Holt blinked slowly at Jake. “Well, I suppose you’ll just have to have a tense, uncomfortable dinner at a nice restaurant, then. Dismissed.” 

“Fucking Holt,” Jake murmured as they walked to the car. “Fucking Holt and his fucking rules and his fucking ties.” 

“Are you still stuck on the tie thing? It happened before we even met.” 

“No, I’m not stuck on the tie thing, I’m just—” He smacked his palms on the edge of the steering wheel, turning to look at her. “I’m just frustrated. This sucks.” 

She pushed the curls back from his forehead, ruffling her fingers through them. “It does suck. It sucks a lot.” 

“I don’t wanna relax,” Jake whined. 

“Me neither.” 

He huffed, bottling up all his frustration and keeping quiet for the rest of the drive home. He had his eyebrows furrowed all through dinner, kept his arms crossed through all of Jeopardy, and didn’t even sing along when she turned on music as she tried to keep her mind off of the case while working through a crossword. 

Jake was still grumpily flipping through channels on TV when Amy called him from the bedroom. 

“Babe?” 

He traipsed into the room, arms still crossed in front of his chest. “What’s—”

He paused when he saw her. Amy was holding two garment bags that had been sitting in the back of their closet for just about a year. She shrugged. 

“I mean, our anniversary _is_ in a little over a week.” 

A slow smile spread across his face. “And we didn’t make our reservations last year…” 

“What do you think?” 

He crossed the room, taking both garment bags out of her hands and hanging them in the front of the closet. He turned back around, pulling her into him and simultaneously kissing her face. “I think you’re the best person I know.” 

He fell asleep that night dreaming about Amy in a dress that he barely remembered seeing on the hanger a year earlier. It still sucked that they had to waste a day they could be using to work the case, but Amy, as per usual, helped him see the silver lining in every situation. 

He tried to shrug off the feeling the next day, he _really_ did. Uneasiness, he supposed. He wasn’t really sure how else to describe it. He didn’t know, but he knew that Amy was feeling it, too. She woke up on edge, and even though she reminded him that he was probably just feeling weird about taking time away from the case so close to the anniversary, he could still see it affecting her. 

So really it was no surprise that they found themselves seated at the restaurant—with Amy looking, just, _breathtaking,_ by the way—spinning out over the case. They’d sent their server away three times without placing an order, and they hadn’t so much as picked at the salad that had been sitting in front of them for twenty minutes. Amy swirled the wine around in her glass while Jake struggled to find the right balance between staring at Amy in that dress and actually making coherent thoughts about the case. 

Which is why it caught him _so_ off guard when she said: 

“What if it’s not a person?” 

He wrinkled his eyebrows up. “What?” 

She shook her head, and he could practically see her tracing out the theory in her head. Her eyes lit up. “What if…” She leaned forward a bit. “What if it’s not a person, but it’s, like, a company? Or an organization?” 

Jake tilted his head. “A company that’s killing people?” 

“What?” She tossed her palms up flippantly. “Jake, keep up. What if it’s a company that’s purchasing the ribbon?” 

He raised his eyebrows. “So there wouldn’t be a direct connection to the murderer through the ledgers.” 

“Exactly. But what kind of company would need to purchase ribbon? Maybe one of those gift-wrapping places, but don’t they only have those around the holidays? Or maybe, like, a church?” 

Jake tapped his finger on the table. “A school. My mom’s an art teacher and I’m almost positive she had ribbon in her classroom when I was growing up.” 

“A school.” Amy hummed thoughtfully, her eyes focusing somewhere far away as she thought for a moment. “Do you remember the one school that kept appearing on the Craft Basket’s ledgers? But none of the other locations had purchases from schools at all.”

“Lincoln Elementary,” Jake supplied. “I remember because Gina’s parents almost used her dad’s address to send her there. Our elementary school mascot was a wolf, and Lincoln’s mascot is _logs._ And, you know, Gina says her spirit animal is a wolf, so I can’t even tell you how many times throughout my life I’ve heard her say _imagine how different our lives would be if I would’ve been a Lincoln Log.”_

Amy blinked at him. “Okay, I love you and I love your weird stories, but we really don’t have time to unpack all that right now.” 

He bit his lip as he smiled at her. “You’re absolutely right, I love you so much, please continue.” 

“Okay, so we know the killer is a man…” She trailed off. “Wouldn’t every teacher have access to the ribbon, though?” 

“Probably everyone who works in the school. Janitors, lunch staff, maybe even parents of students…” Amy’s face fell, and Jake jumped back in. “But let’s start with what we have.” 

He fiddled with his phone for a second, pulling up the Lincoln Elementary web page. He moved so that she could see his phone screen, then scrolled through the page until he found the staff tab. He clicked it, doing a quick scan through of all the names and images. 

“Okay, so it looks like there are three male teachers in the school.” He clicked on each one individually, reading about them from a short biography section as he did. “A first grade teacher, a fourth grade teacher, and—would you look at that? The art teacher.” 

“Jason Coates,” Amy murmured. “He looks so… _normal.”_

“What’s he supposed to look like, Ames? Freddy Kreuger?” 

“I don’t know.” She made a face at him. “Just, he doesn’t exactly look like someone who’s murdered seven people and evaded detection for upwards of three years total. I just kind of felt like I would see him and it would all definitely make sense, but he just looks like a normal guy.” 

Jake scoffed. “I know for a fact I’ve made you watch every serial killer documentary that _exists_ this year. You know they’re not always obvious weirdos. Sometimes they’re attractive and charming. You can’t count him out because of that.” He looked at her expectantly, but she just raised her eyebrows and rolled her eyes. “I really think you’re onto something with this, Ames. Play it out with me.” 

“Look, I’m not counting him out, but you’re just humoring me. The only connection we have is the craft store.” 

“Which is more of a connection than we’ve had in _months_ , and you know it. _You_ humor _me.”_ He reached across the table, playing with her fingers. “Assume it’s the art teacher. How would he find the women?” 

Amy took a deep breath, looking down at their fingers and watching Jake’s hand moving on hers. “I mean, the obvious answer is the kids.” 

“Yeah. But none of our victims had kids.” 

“I know.” She scrunched her eyebrows up. “Unless…” 

“The kids weren’t theirs.” Jake finished, quirking an eyebrow at her. 

“Exactly. The victims knew a kid who went to the school.” 

“And—” Jake shook his head. “Oh my _god_. This is, like, the perfect idea. Because kids are stupid, so he could ask kids questions about his vics and they wouldn’t necessarily know he was being a creep.” 

“Like little data mines. He knows we aren’t going to randomly question the five year old child of a victim’s friend for no reason. And he’s their teacher, so they probably trust him. It’s like the perfect crime.” 

“And he can just keep coming back with more questions, keeping tabs on the women and learning more and more about them without actually being required to get close. He’d have the opportunity to know his victims before he ever even speaks to them.” Jake shook his head, a sort of manic smile taking over. “But that doesn’t explain how he chooses the women. How would he meet them?” 

Amy thought for a second. Jake almost laughed at the way her entire face lit up. “School events. Places he could go to scope out families and friends without looking out of place.”

Jake smacked his hands on the table, catching the attention of everyone around them. _“Yes!”_ He frowned when someone gave him a dirty look, flashing his palms at them in a placating manner and repeating much quieter, “Yes!” 

“Open houses, school concerts, soccer games…” She trailed off. “I bet he’s at all of them.” 

“I wonder if I can pull up a calendar of Lincoln’s events.” Jake tapped at his phone.

“But even _if_ we can place events, he was probably stalking these women for _months_. We have to be able to place the children at the school.” 

“Okay, okay…” He looked at her seriously. “People stalk people on facebook all the time, right? Let’s see how useful it is.” He set his phone on the table, tapping his fingers impatiently while the app loaded. “Name a family we interviewed that has kids.”

“The Smiths.” 

“Oh, uh, Danny?” 

“And Rachel.” 

He typed in Danny’s name, locating a private profile. He groaned, going back and typing in Rachel’s name. Amy hummed when he found the profile, and they both inspected her profile pictures closely. He flicked through pictures quickly, looking for pictures of the kids, school t-shirts, _something_ that would prove they were connected to Lincoln Elementary. 

“Stop, there.” Amy pointed, a frown on her lips. “Bumper sticker says Cedar Bay Elementary.” 

“Fuck.” Jake sighed. “Nelsons?” 

“Erica and Jonathon.” 

“Were you two ready to order this evening?” The server came by, a bit of an attitude in his tone. 

“No,” Amy snapped. Jake looked up at her, eyebrows raised. She pursed her lips, then turned to the server. “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to…” She trailed off, locking eyes with the clearly frustrated man. “We, uhm, still need a few minutes.” 

“You are aware that reservations to this restaurant are extremely difficult to come by, correct?” 

“Which is exactly why we need to take our time deciding what we want.” Jake replied with a smile. “We don’t know when we’ll be back.” 

“Hopefully never,” the man murmured, slumping his shoulders as he walked away. 

“Jeez.” Jake shook his head, looking back down at his phone. Amy was already pulling up another family on her phone. “Ames. Ames, look.” 

He turned his phone so she could see it. Erica Nelson’s profile picture was of her and her daughter, the Blue Ribbon victim’s niece. Erica wore a shirt that read Lincoln Elementary PTO, while her daughter’s shirt said _these logs chop back._

“I mean, seriously, what kind of slogan is that?” 

Amy flashed her screen at Jake. The Gates family, a friend of one of the other victims. Their son had his fifth grade graduation at Lincoln the previous June. 

“Amy…” He laughed incredulously. “I think you just figured this out.” 

She shook her head. “We need more. More ties, more evidence. It could be a coincidence.” 

“Okay, who was that family with the baby and the super cute son who just lost his first tooth?” 

“Scott and Leilani Harrison. You take them and I’ll take the Reyes family.” 

It took him a minute, but one of Scott’s liked pages was the Lincoln Elementary page. 

“The Reyes family lives in the wrong district according to their pages, but Heather Richards is in Lincoln’s tagged pictures. She chaperoned a field day for her third grader last year.” 

“That’s five families tied to Lincoln Elementary. Out of seven victims.” He paused, waiting for her to reply. “This is it, Amy. It’s gotta be him.” 

“We’ve had serious leads before.” 

“I think we should call Holt.” Jake urged her, sliding her phone closer to her. 

“He’s gonna be mad that we’re working the case instead of relaxing.” 

“Yeah, but only until he finds out that you _solved it.”_

She bit her lip, contemplating. “I mean, we can’t hold onto this information in case it _is_ helpful…” She nodded, pulling her wallet out of her purse and dropping some cash on the table. “Let’s go to the car.” 

It was already getting dark outside, the sun leaving a hazy, pinkish blur lingering in the sky. The call to Holt was already ringing on speaker phone by the time they stepped out of the restaurant. He caught her in a quick kiss, holding her close. “I’m so proud of you.” 

She grinned at him. “Don’t be. Not yet.” 

He shook his head, but the smile didn’t fade as they slid into the car. Holt answered as soon as they were in. 

“Santiago?” 

“Sir? I think we have a lead on the case.” 

“Does it involve Olivia Turner?” 

Jake and Amy exchanged a look. “Olivia—who?” 

“Olivia Turner,” Holt repeated. “The woman who was reported missing this morning and who is now being guarded in the hospital. She fits the description perfectly. She’s a surgeon.” Amy’s breath hitched. Her eyes were just as wide as Jake’s, and they just stared at each other, motionless. “She escaped him.” 

“But…” 

“I know.” He sighed. “Are you two at the restaurant? She was picked up a few streets over.”

“Sir, uhm, I think we have an idea who the killer might be.” 

There was a pause on the line. “We have a sketch artist already working with the new victim. Give me all the information you have. Diaz, Boyle,” there was shuffling on the line as he switched to speaker phone, “run any information Santiago and Peralta give us. Go ahead.” 

Amy looked at Jake, but he nodded her on to begin. 

“Jason Coates. Art teacher at Lincoln Elementary. We think he was purchasing the ribbon through the school.” Amy began. 

“Lincoln Elementary appeared a few times on the ledger for the Craft Basket that’s closest to where we are now, but none of the other locations had schools on their ledgers.” Jake continued. 

“He’s selecting women at school events—we think based solely on appearance—then he’s using the kids to source information about the women.” 

“We traced five families that we had interviewed back to Lincoln Elementary.” 

“But the kids aren’t all immediate family members. The guy’s smart, chooses people distant enough that the kids wouldn’t be an obvious connection.”

“Rosa?” Amy called out. 

“What’s up?” Her voice was a bit distant, but clear. 

“See if you can pull an address on Coates. He’s a teacher, so he shouldn’t have a record, but if we can get—” 

“Already on it,” Rosa interrupted. There was a brief pause, a clacking of keys. “You guys…” She trailed off. Jake’s lips quirked up when Holt made an incredulous sound. “His house is central to all of the dumpsites.” 

Jake pumped his fist in the air silently, and Amy was in the process of rolling her eyes when something caught her attention out the window. 

“So, if she escaped, that means—”

“His routine has been interrupted,” Holt cut him off. “So he’s more dangerous and unpredictable than before. Good work, you two.” 

“It was all Amy.” He smiled at her, but she didn’t turn to look at him, seemingly not even hearing what they were talking about. 

He followed her gaze, his breath hitching when he saw what she was looking at. 

Her voice came out weak and shaky. “You wouldn’t happen to know what kind of car he drives, would you?” 

There was another tapping sound. “Yeah, a 1997 Ford Windstar.” 

Amy swallowed. “One of those creepy old vans? In silver?” 

There was a lengthy pause. “Yeah…” 

Amy laughed softly. “Found him.” 

And sure enough, he was there. About twenty-five feet ahead of them, illuminated by the street light he was under, he was leaning against the side of his creepy old van. Just _standing there._

“So, uhm…” Amy trailed off, her eyes flickering uncomfortably to Jake, then down at her dress. “I mean, I have to be bait.” Jake hesitated, his mouth opening to refute that, but he quickly shut his mouth again, remembering their conversation from some months earlier. “Because I can at least have a handle on the situation, but if he gets somebody else…”

“He’s…” Jake sighed, stuck somewhere between wanting to be supportive like he’d promised he would be and _really_ hating this (like he _also_ promised he would). “Ames, he’s unpredictable.” 

“I know. And I can negotiate with him better than a scared civilian could. If he gets somebody else, they’re gone, Jake. I don’t want to give him the chance to get away with somebody else. I have a chance.” 

He shook his head. “A chance?” 

“She’s right, Peralta.” Rosa piped in. “She’s got better than a chance.” 

Jake squeezed his eyes shut, only opening them when she grabbed his hand. She was going to do it regardless of what he said, but she wanted his approval. He reluctantly nodded, jaw clenched tight. “But I swear to god, Amy… If he touches you, I’m coming over there, okay?” 

She shook her head. “I’ll hold up three fingers behind my back if I need you.” 

He clenched his jaw tighter, huffing a breath through his nose. “Fine.” 

“Santiago, add Jake to this call. I want all of us to be able to hear everything that’s happening. We’re heading to your location now, you just have to keep him occupied and handle any problems that arise until we arrive.” Amy nodded, already adding Jake to the call as Holt continued. “You two are in the car?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

“Okay. Peralta, you wait in the car until she’s talking to him for a minute, then get as close as you can without being suspicious. Don’t draw _any_ attention to yourself unless she signals for help. He needs to feel like he’s in control of the situation. Figure out your persona before you go out there. Name, job, what you’re doing in the area—no surprises. Do you understand?” 

“Yes, sir.” 

Jake sighed. “Yeah.” Amy squeezed his hand again. He squeezed back, trying to ignore the uneasiness flaring up in him again. 

“And Santiago—” Holt paused, sighing deeply. “Be careful. Olivia has three fractured ribs, a lot of bruising, and a minor case of hypothermia. You shouldn’t be in severe danger so long as you stay in public, but with his routine being interrupted…”

“I will be.” She nodded at Jake, though it did nothing to quell the nausea tugging at him. “Okay. What’s my name?” 

Jake took a deep, slow breath, trying to play along. “Alexis Fox.” He nodded, avoiding her eyes. “I’m sorry, I, uh, can’t make up a cool background story right now.”

She kept her eyes on Coates. “I’m a lawyer, because I know enough about lawyers to fake it if he asks me any questions about work.” 

“Good call,” Jake practically whispered. He gestured to her dress. “Uh, you were on a date, obviously. But you got stood up, or it went badly, your call.” 

“Stood up. Easier to explain, less questions.” 

“And less believable. Who would stand you up looking like _that?”_

“Jake—”

“I’m sorry, I’m just…” He shook his head, offering her a smile that didn’t touch his eyes. “I’m fine.” 

“I will be, too.” She raised her eyebrows at him, leaning in a little. She nodded. He followed her lead and nodded with her. She leaned back down, reaching under the seat and grabbing the handcuff case that she’d brought _just in case_ , affixing the band around her thigh. “We’re gonna be careful. But we have to get moving.” 

Jake swallowed, nodding a little slower. He mouthed _mute your phone_ , and she looked down and hit the mute button, then glanced out at Coates before returning her full attention to him. He leaned across the center console, weaving his fingers into her hair as he leaned his forehead on hers. “I love you, Ames.” 

“I love you.” Her fingers splayed across his jaw. They held each other like that for a moment, Jake trying to find it in him to let her go. He breathed into the slow kiss she offered, then nuzzled his nose against hers. 

“Please be careful.” 

“I promise.” 

He kissed her again, this one a little longer, a little more frantic. 

“I feel that I should make you aware that you only muted one of the phones,” Holt announced. 

Amy’s eyes widened, but Jake just held her for another moment. He took a deep breath, nodding his head against hers. “Okay.” 

“Sorry, sir,” Amy murmured as she readied herself to get out of the car. 

“Make sure you mute your phone so that you can’t hear us, Santiago.” 

“I love you,” she said one last time. 

“I love you, too. I’m right here if you need me.” 

She smiled. “I know.” 

And then he watched with bated breath as she got out of the car without another glance. There was never a real time where he thought he would be okay during this moment, but he was having a much harder time than he thought he would. He trusted her. She could take care of herself, he knew. She didn’t _need him_ , but every nerve in his body was screaming at him to get out of the car, to get closer _just in case_. She didn’t normally need him, but what if just this once, she did? What if just this once she did, and he wasn’t close enough? 

But he gritted his teeth and resisted, watching her every move with his fingers on the door handle. He was ready if he needed to spring into action. 

“What’s happening? Explain it to us.” 

“Uh…” Jake watched. “She’s still a little ways away, I think just scoping out a closer look.” His breath hitched. “He just looked at her.” 

She was looking the other way, slowly walking in his direction with her attention appearing to be elsewhere. His eyes were on her, intense and focused, and it made Jake’s skin crawl. He wanted desperately to get in between them, but he didn’t move. 

“He’s watching her.” He took a ragged breath. “I hate this.” 

“We’re on our way.” 

She was walking with a sort of intensity that he recognized, like she was mad about something. He wondered how she was going to play this. He thought she was going to walk right past him, but at the last second she took a step to her left and slammed directly into him. 

“Oh my god!” Her voice came through on his phone. He held his breath, watching as the man steadied her with hands on her bare shoulders. Images flashed through his mind, that woman who looked just like Amy, a green ribbon tied on her wrist—her skin appearing gray and dirty, bruises on her arms in the same place where those same fingers were touching Amy. He felt sick. 

“He’s touching her.” 

“What’s he—”

“She bumped into him. He has his hands on her arms. _Still.”_

She laughed. “I’m so sorry! I wasn’t even looking where I was going. God, I slammed right into you. Are you okay?” 

He smiled at her, his voice coming through slightly less clear on the receiver. “I’m fine, I’m fine. Are you okay?” 

She brushed him off a bit, taking a step back. “Yeah, I’m great. I’m really sorry, I can’t believe I did that.” 

“Yeah, are you in a rush? You were moving pretty quickly.” 

She shifted her weight, gesturing down to her dress. He was clearly checking her out. They weren’t even entirely sure about everything this guy did to the women before he killed them, but he imagined that he was imagining doing all of those things to Amy. 

“Yeah, I can’t do this,” Jake muttered. “I have to get closer. I’d feel better if I was closer.” 

“Just hang back a bit when you get out there. There’s no telling what he’ll do if he gets spooked.” 

Jake nodded, as if Holt could see. He shuffled through the center console, pulling out his airpods and popping one into his ear. “I’m gonna be talking less once I’m out there, but I’ll try to keep giving you guys updates.” 

“Yeah, sorry,” Amy continued. “I’m just kind of frustrated, I guess. I should’ve been paying better attention.” 

“What has you so upset?” 

Amy scoffed. “I was supposed to be meeting a date at that restaurant up the street, but he stood me up.” She sighed. “After I spent all this time getting ready.” 

Coates clucked his tongue. “That’s a shame. I hope you don’t mind me saying this, but the dude’s really missing out. You’re gorgeous.” 

Jake gritted his teeth. 

She laughed. “Thank you so much! That’s so sweet. Too bad my date didn’t feel the same way, I guess.” 

Coates shrugged. “I mean, if you’re looking for something to do, I’m sure I could help turn your night around.” 

He could picture the look on her face, her eyebrow raised in question. “What did you have in mind?” 

“I don’t know.” He tapped his hand on the hood of his car. “There’s a cute park a few miles away, I could drive us up—” 

Amy shook her head. “I don’t really make a habit of getting into cars with strange men that I just met—no offense.” 

The man made a face at her, but it slowly morphed back into a smile. “None taken.” 

She sighed. “God, you know, it’s just so _hard._ Like, every time I meet a guy, it’s just _something,_ ya’know? Like he has a secret wife, or I scare him away talking about work, or he’s obsessed with Die Hard, or _something._ Always something.” She turned her head slightly, enough that Jake could see the smile that was meant for him. 

Coates tilted his head, chuckling. “Oh, do you have a scary job?” 

She laughed. “No, I wouldn’t say scary, exactly. Just _busy_ , I guess. I’m a lawyer, so, ya’know, I’m kind of married to the job. I guess it can be intimidating for new guys.” 

“A lawyer, huh?” His interest was clearly piqued. “What kind?” 

Jake held his breath. They should’ve discussed that before she went to go talk to him. 

“Criminal defense,” she replied without missing a beat. 

Coates breathed a sort of disbelieving laugh. “So you _really_ spend a lot of time working then, huh? Lots of crime around here, bet it keeps you busy.” 

“God, you don’t even know the half of it.” Amy leaned on the side of his car with him, crossing her arms over her chest. 

“Hey, you hear about that case last year?” 

She shrugged a shoulder. “You’ll have to be more specific than that. I hear about a lot of cases.” 

He laughed, a bit of annoyance seeping into the gesture. “It never actually made it to trial. They found a body in the woods off of Atlantic?” He paused for a moment, watching Amy. “They think it was tied to those murders from the year before. That serial killer.” 

“Oh, yeah. They never caught the guy.” She was trying not to lead him, to see where he was going with it. 

“Yeah.” He stammered a bit, and Jake couldn’t tell from where he was if it was out of excitement or if he was trying to cover up why he’d bring up such a specific case. “It was pretty close to my house, so sometimes I wonder about the guy. Scary stuff, don’t you think?” 

She was quiet for a moment, and even from a distance away, he could feel the wheels turning in her head. “I don’t know. I think maybe he’s not as scary as he is scared.” 

He scoffed. “Why would he be scared?” 

Amy shrugged. “Because he knows things won’t always go the way he plans. And one day they’re going to catch him. And I don’t think even the best defense lawyer could get him out of whatever comes after that.” 

His voice was bitter. “What’s your name?” 

“Alexis.” She smiled up at him. 

“I’m Jason.” He smiled back. They were silent for a moment, Amy kicking at a rock in front of her. 

“I don’t like this,” Jake muttered quietly. “Something’s just…” He shook his head, peering around the corner of the building he was leaning on. 

“We’re almost there. About five more minutes. Is everything under control?” 

Jake opened his mouth to reply, but then Coates began speaking. 

“You know, now that we know each other’s names, we’re not really strangers, are we?” 

Amy laughed uncomfortably. “I mean, that’s one way to argue it, I guess.” 

“The lawyer jumps right out.” He laughed. “I like that. C’mon, let me drive us up to that park.” 

She was smiling, but Jake could see in her body language that she was uncomfortable. “No, that’s okay. I appreciate it, though.”

“Captain, I don’t like this.” 

“Look, uh, if I’m being honest…” Jason trailed off. “I actually just lost somebody really important to me today. So I think we could both use this trip to the park. Or we could drive somewhere else if you wanted. Ya’know, make each other feel better.” 

“I’m really sorry to hear that, but I just don’t really feel comfortable with that.” 

“He’s—”

Jake cut off, freezing in his place as he watched Amy shift away from Jason. He leaned closer to her, stepping into her space. Jake was close enough that he could get to her if something happened, so he held his breath and stood his ground because she didn’t hold three fingers up behind her back, she was _fine_. He trusted her. 

But _fuck_ , he hated this. 

Jason’s voice was more stern all of a sudden, all the charm that had previously been coating his words completely forgotten. “We never shook hands, you know.” He extended his hand for her to take. She took a step back, assessing him. He stayed in place, waiting for her to take the bait. Jake hadn’t realized he was holding his breath again until Amy took Jason’s hand, and then his breath all came out with a muttered _fuck_ and he was moving, all but completely ignoring Holt’s frantic _what’s happening?!_ as he moved closer. 

She hadn’t held up three fingers behind her back, but she _had_ accepted Jason’s hand for a handshake. And as soon as her hand was in his, he was forcefully tugging her to him, hissing out a _you’re gonna get in the fucking car and you’re not going to make a scene, got it?_

Jake was already closing the distance between them, so he didn’t hear the way that Amy’s breath hitched over his footsteps. He couldn’t see the way she clenched her jaw as she nodded, one stern nod. He didn’t see the way that Coates relaxed just slightly, his hand sliding around the curve of her waist to guide her as he backed up just the slightest bit. 

What he _did_ see, and what completely stopped him in his tracks, was Amy punching Coates in the stomach, then taking advantage of the way he reflexively hunched over in pain to _flip him over her shoulder_. 

“Oh my _god,”_ Jake whispered, watching as Amy sprang into action, wasting no time in flipping Coates onto his stomach, her knee pressing into his back to keep him stable as she maneuvered around her dress to reach for her cuffs. He groaned, jerking his shoulder back to try and knock her off of his back, but she didn’t budge. 

“What’s happening?” Holt shouted, but Jake couldn’t find his words. He just stood there, watching in awe as Amy clasped the cuffs on him, on the serial killer they’d been trying to catch for _two years_. He never thought he’d see Amy flip a man over her shoulder in a dress like that, and it was doing something weird to him, his heart dropping into his stomach and knotting up there. He had been worried about her— _really_ worried about her, and while he knew that she could handle herself, watching it all unfold was something he couldn’t even begin to explain. 

“Peralta— _Peralta?_ Is she okay?” 

Jake choked out a soft, exasperated laugh. “She’s amazing.” 

“Jake?” Amy was looking at him now, her eyebrows raised.. “What are you doing? Come over here.” 

“Oh, god, of course, I’m sorry.” He sprinted over to her, extending a hand to help her off of the ground, brushing his fingers across the fabric of her dress where it was bunched up. 

“Do you want to do the honors?” 

“Amy, no. This was all you.” A grin stretched across his face. 

_“What_ is happening?” Holt snapped. 

Jake turned his head toward the sirens in the distance. They were almost there. His heart thumped in his chest, adrenaline and love and happiness and just _relief_ overwhelming him, his voice soft with emotion when he responded. “She arrested him.” 

The next few hours were a blur. Amy mirandized Coates, Holt loaded him into the back of the cruiser. They followed behind them back to the precinct, where Coates immediately confessed, almost bragging about all the crimes he’d committed. They’d been right about choosing the women from school events. It turned out that he did speak to his victims when he met them. He encouraged them to come back to other events at the school, where he’d speak to them each time, building a sort of trust with them. He didn’t abduct them, he took them out for a date, and then when they went back to his place, the woman never left alive. 

Olivia Turner wasn’t supposed to be his victim this year, but his actual victim had abruptly moved to another state. It threw everything off from that moment on, he’d said. He didn’t have the opportunity to build that rapport with Olivia that he liked to have. This was more of an abduction, she was clearly less comfortable with him from the beginning. He was messy, he was aggressive, he was too spontaneous with it all. But what choice did he have? He didn’t have time to build up a relationship with another woman. 

And if Olivia hadn’t gotten away, he reminded them, they wouldn’t have caught him. He was a _genius_ , and he’d be remembered for how long he toyed with the authorities, for the seven murders he committed right under their noses. 

“Please,” Jake had snapped, laughing. “She _had you._ Whether you messed up or not, we’d figured out it was you before we even saw you tonight.” 

Coates stared at Jake for a long moment, a menacing smirk on his face. “You’re lucky _I_ didn’t have _her.”_ He turned his smirk onto Amy. “She’s perfect.” 

The context of _perfect to be one of his victims_ didn’t have to be spoken to be understood. Amy ushered Jake out of the interrogation room before he could manage a reply. 

They completed the paperwork, Jake taking frequent breaks to smile over at Amy, absolutely giddy that this case was finally coming to a close. They’d still have a trial, but he was fairly certain it was smooth-sailing the rest of the way. The way that Coates had confessed made him think he just might plead guilty, his ego refusing to let him fight for a lesser sentence. 

Holt popped a bottle of champagne he’d been saving for a special occasion, and they all sat in the parking lot, sipping it out of paper cups. Olivia Turner was alive, Jason Coates would never have another victim, Amy was ridiculously great, and Jake was sure that life couldn’t get any better than this. 

They made a plan to head to Shaw’s, but the second Jake and Amy were finally alone in the car, they took advantage of the first real moment they’d had to relax in at least the past few months. They leaned back in their seats, smiling at each other quietly. 

“Thank you,” Amy finally broke their comfortable silence. 

Jake raised an eyebrow at her. “For what?” 

“You let me have the credit for the solve. It’s always been your dream to catch a serial killer. I’m sorry if I—

“Ames.” He shook his head. “Don’t apologize to me. I am nothing but proud right now. You are…” He let out a soft, breathy laugh, searching for words that he knew could never really encompass his feelings for her. “My girlfriend caught a serial killer, and honestly that might be _better_ than catching one myself.” 

She grinned. “Thank you. For backing me. And trusting me. I know it wasn’t easy to watch me do that.” 

He watched as she ran her fingers through her hair, the moonlight hitting her in the most mesmerizing way. The pale, blue light from the moon glistened on her skin. He sucked in a sharp breath, watching her look out the window, a devastatingly beautiful smile on her face despite the fact that he could tell she was deep in thought. 

He found himself thumbing the door to the little compartment just to the left of the steering wheel. He laughed again, and her attention shifted back to his face, her smile softening more. 

“God, you know, I just…” He breathed a soundless chuckle. “I can’t believe that I get to be with someone as amazing as you.”

She reached for his hand. He tilted his head against his headrest, her attention making him feel like the only person in the world. “You’re just as amazing, Jake.” They stayed that way for a moment, just looking at each other with nothing but love between them. “You ready to go?”

He took a deep breath. She watched his fingers fidget with her own. 

“Ames, uh… I’m sorry, before we go, can I just…” He shifted in his seat so that he was facing her more fully. She blinked at him, her eyes flickering between his. The streetlights provided a soft glow, and her smile calmed his still too-fast heart rate. She always had that effect on him—slowing down the world around him so that what felt like fast forward could be taken in bite sized pieces, something he could form a plan of attack for, something he could take time to commit to memory. 

“What’s up, Jake? You okay?” 

She knew him too well. 

“I’ve never been better.” 

Her smile widened, and she tilted her head toward his slightly, an invitation to continue. 

“You’re amazing, Amy.” She laughed softly, and he shook his head. “No. Don’t do that.” 

“Don’t do what?” Another little disbelieving laugh escaped her lips. 

“Play it off. You kicked ass today. You kick ass _every day,_ Ames. You’re a phenomenal sergeant and detective. Like…” He shook his head. “You put the best detective in the NYPD to shame. Regularly.” 

She quirked an eyebrow at him, her playful smirk making his heart swell. “I put myself to shame?” 

He laughed, then looked at her through narrowed eyes, a teasing smile playing at his lips. “Ames. C’mon.” 

“Oh. You’re right. Detective Dave Majors.” Her eyes twinkled in the light as she shot his teasing right back. 

Jake’s jaw dropped, feigning a hurt expression. “Wow. I was going to say because you’re a sergeant now, but _okay.”_

She held her hand up to her chest, shaking her head softly. “That’s a formality. And regardless, the best detective in the NYPD is definitely either me or Majors, babe. And since you don’t know Majors’ stats…” Her fingers moved to quickly cover her lips. “Oh my god, were you talking about yourself?” 

He shook his head, his tongue coming out to poke at the corner of his lips. He pressed his lips back together, an adoring smile aimed at her. “I love you.” 

She bit her lip. “I love you.” 

“And I love watching you work. You’re a force that I never expected when I met you. You’re the smartest person I know and you’re so _you_. I love every dorky little dance, and every binder, and every rule, and every time you correct my grammar—”

She grinned sheepishly “You almost have who and whom down.” 

He chuckled, his hand moving from that little compartment back down to his lap. “I love your face, and I love your butt.” She laughed, and he smiled at her. “You’re kind, and you’re funny, and…” He looked down. 

She followed his gaze, and when he looked back up at her, her lips were parted, no trace left of her smile from just a few seconds before. Her eyes were wide as she looked down at the little velvety box he was rolling between his fingers. 

“Jake…” 

“This isn’t how I was planning to do this…” He trailed off. 

“You planned…” Her voice was soft, emotion making it shake. “You hate planning.” 

“Not when it comes to you.” He breathed another soft laugh. “I guess I just realized that you’re in every plan that I’ve made in the past two years. And I could have waited…” He frowned to himself. “Maybe I _should have_ waited, made this moment as perfect as you deserve for it to be… but I can’t imagine spending another moment not being engaged to the most incredible person I’ve ever met.” 

Amy laughed tearfully. “Jake, you’ve technically met Taylor Swift.”

He laughed with her. “If you repeat this, I’ll deny it so hard.” He paused to look at her seriously. “But I’d choose you every time.” 

He looked down one last time, this time bringing the box up in front of his chest when he looked back up at her face. “I love you. And I want to spend every day for the rest of my life loving you, and being surprised by you, and just, being in awe of how amazing you are.” He opened up the box, his heart in his throat when she gasped, her hands coming up to cover her mouth again. “Amy Santiago, will you marry me?” 

She took a shaky breath, nodding her head. “Jake Peralta, I will marry you.” 

He breathed a sigh of relief, pulling the ring out of the box and sliding it onto her finger before pulling her in for a kiss, warm and familiar, exciting and new all at once. A knock on the window startled them apart, then Jake was turning to see Charles staring at him questioningly. He rolled the window down.

“Hey, what are you guys still doing here? I had to run back upstairs for something but—” He paused abruptly, his eyes focusing in on Amy’s hand in Jake’s. “Did you just…?” 

“Mhm.” 

“And did you say…?” 

“Mhm.” 

So after they picked Charles up off the ground, they had another thing to celebrate at Shaw’s, and Jake found that, contrary to what he’d thought less than an hour earlier, life _could_ get even better. He’d toasted to Amy, Amy had toasted to the squad, and Holt had toasted to the newly engaged couple. 

They left the bar at 1am, happy and drunk and in love. They made out in the back of the cab, the driver congratulating them when Jake apologized, citing that _he’d just gotten engaged to the most beautiful woman in the world_ as his reason for being so touchy. Amy didn’t try to redirect his wandering hands, and they tipped their driver extra when they arrived. 

They were kissing again as he struggled to get the keys into the lock. They’d barely had time to step in the door before she was unbuckling his belt and tugging his pants down. He hiked her dress up, simultaneously pulling the zipper down her back. His jacket fell to the floor in a crumpled heap, her fingers attacking each button in search of more skin. He hooked her leg around his hip, burying a moan against her throat as he pressed into her. It was rushed and desperate in their endeavor to have more of each other, to have _all_ of each other. His fingers bruised her thigh where he held her, her nails pressing red crescents into the small of his back. 

When they woke up a few hours later, the clothes they’d waited a year to wear strewn across their apartment, it was entirely different. 

“Jake?” Her whispers pulled him out of his sleep, and he blinked through bleary eyes to find her looking at him, eyes wide.

“Mmmm, what’s wrong, babe?” His voice was raspy. He wound an arm around her waist in a sleepy attempt to comfort her. 

“Is it real?” 

He raised his eyebrows, his eyes already shut again. “Is what real?” 

“Did you propose to me, or was that a dream?” 

And then his eyes were open and he was smiling and they were kissing despite the way their smiles tried to make it impossible. Those smiles dissolved as a loving, elated embrace turned into something more decisive. This time when he pushed into her, they were a mess of sighs and shallow breaths. They moved together flawlessly, slow and deep and in love. Her ring sparkled in the dim light, and he couldn’t resist reaching out and holding her hand, his thumb sweeping over her knuckles, tracing over the ring that was finally on her finger. They clung to each other as they climaxed, whispered confessions of love interspersed with kisses that made him feel every word in his bones. 

He thought, for what would be far from the last time, about how lucky he was that he ran into her at Cop Con that day. 

He thought about how he wouldn’t change a single thing about their story—even all the miscommunications and low moments—because it brought him to this moment, to pressing soft kisses against her jaw with her arms wrapped tight around his neck as she tipped her head to whisper that she loved him so much. 

Every difficult moment in his life was worth it because it brought him here to her. 

And he loved it. 

He loved her, his _fiancée,_ and he would live every bad moment in his life a thousand times over if it meant that he got to experience this moment just once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> can't believe we have two chapters left. 
> 
> also can't believe this chapter is literally 20k words i'm a fuckin mess lmao. but to be fair it DOES go over the course of an entire year and it felt weird to split this into multiple chapters??? idk regardless if you read this whole chapter (and tbh this whole fic!) kudos to you and THANK YOU.
> 
> did you guys see it coming, though? i was kind of gunning for it to be a bit of a surprise. 
> 
> hope you liked it! lemme knoooooow ily okay bye i'm gonna go walk my dog


	23. choking back tears

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> title from All My Love by the Icarus Account 
> 
> _and darling, I still hear the words,_   
>  _"to have and to hold until we grow old,"_   
>  _choking back tears of joy, tears of joy_
> 
> also thank you to mai for all the help with this chapter!! greatly appreciated—i've been a mess lately and your kind words and patience were the push i needed to figure out the next steps. love youuu

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so! this was decidedly not! the plan! 
> 
> this chapter wasn't finished yet but was already running hecka long and i still had a lot to tackle, so! the chapter is being split in two. this means that after you read this chapter, you will still have two chapters left to read. (i told you guys the number of chapters was subject to change!!) 
> 
> anyways, the other half of this long ass chapter isn't finished yet, but i figured i've kept you guys waiting enough, you could probably do with the first half. 
> 
> (and this is likely going to be the last smut scene in the entire fic—things are coming to a close out here guys)
> 
> also sorry i've been so slow to post lately. i went back to work full time like a month and a half ago and i'm in the middle of moving to another state and my life is just general chaos. trust that there are always things happening behind the scenes though!!

A little over a year. 

Days rolled into weeks, turned into months, until another anniversary had passed where Amy was not his wife. While _I can’t wait until you’re my wife_ was falling from his lips more and more frequently in both intimate moments and the more monotonous ones alike, Jake really didn’t have any complaints. They were planning a kickass wedding, they had a wedding shower and bridal party brunches and bachelor/bachelorette parties (which, ultimately turned into a giant group at Shaw’s, the two of them beaming at each other over their fifth drinks, surrounded by their favorite people), and he was just as—if not _more_ —in love with her as he had always been. Besides, when he was lucky enough that his days were spent with her, he couldn’t really be _too_ picky about the specifics, could he? 

So it’s not like he wasn’t kept busy. There was work, there was all the planning, there were the regular ins and outs of their days. There was always something going on to keep his mind moving, and when there wasn’t, he was pretty well known for setting his sights on Amy and getting things moving in a different way _(babe, I’m addressing the save-the-dates, stop—wait, yeah, do that again)_. 

But he’d be lying if he said that he wasn’t getting a little bit restless. In the past, he’d never really considered himself to be someone that was particularly interested in marriage. Maybe he just never really thought that he was marriage _material,_ or perhaps he’d just never met someone who brought out that side of him. But past perceptions of himself aside, by the time May fourteenth rolled around, he wanted nothing more than to be Amy Santiago’s husband.

The rehearsal dinner had gone without a problem, so of course the second all eyes were off of them, they were breaking every rule that had been set out for them. Which, _c’mon_ , everyone had to have known that this was going to happen. Had they _seen_ Amy in that dress? Short, white dress, lace across her shoulder blades, the small of her back exposed until the dress curved into a short, flowy skirt. Between that hint of cleavage and those extra two inches of thigh that were exposed when she moved just right, his _hasn’t had sex in a month_ mind had been completely preoccupied. 

Oh, yeah, they haven’t fucked in just under a month. That’s the only rule they _weren’t_ currently breaking. It was Amy’s rule, something Kylie had told her to try— _makes for an explosive wedding night, if ya’know what I mean_ , Kylie had informed Jake over brunch one day. Jake raised his eyebrows at Amy, who blushed, elbowed Kylie, and tried to ignore the elated giggle that almost made Charles choke on his waffle. 

_He_ , on the other hand, had been trying to explain to Amy that withholding sex for a month might not have that desired effect on their first time as a married couple. _I’m just saying,_ he’d murmured to her as she shooed his hand away when it found its way under her shirt one night, _if I come in three minutes, I don’t want to hear a single complaint._

But something about the wait of it all intrigued her. She’d want him regardless, she knew, but the way she wanted him after they spent a week apart? The way she wanted him _now_ , a few days shy of a month in without _any_ sexual contact? 

Kylie and their mothers had all these stupid rules, stupid traditions that Jake just wasn’t here for. _No sleeping in the same room the night before the wedding, no seeing each other until she walks down the aisle._ But once everybody else had finally gone off to bed, Rosa staked out the hotel hallway so that Gina could sneak Amy off to Jake’s room. She’d knocked on the door, and the second he opened it, she was pushing against him, her lips already on his, her free hand in his hair. Gina murmured out a _jeez, have fun, sickos,_ but they barely even heard her before Jake shut the door and pushed Amy up against it. 

“Mmmm,” she hummed into the kiss, laughing as he clutched her closer. “No sex, babe.” 

“I know,” he whined, leaning his forehead on hers. “I’ve never been this horny _in my life_ , Ames.” 

“Just one more day.” 

He nodded, his eyes locked on her lips as he swallowed thickly, then pulled her back in. He slipped his hand underneath her dress, following the curve of her bare thigh until he was squeezing a handful of her ass. “Just one more day.” His lips ghosted across hers as he repeated the phrase, as if he were trying to remind himself. 

“Fuck, you’re already so hard.” She palmed him through his dress pants, adjusting him from where he’d been pressed against her thigh. 

He groaned, burying the sound in a bite to her neck and rutting closer to her touch. “Mmmm, fuck, you can’t do that to me. No dirty talk _at all._ It’s been a month, you know I can’t handle it.” 

She took a deep, steadying breath at the raw quality of his voice. “No _biting_ , Jake. I don’t want bite marks on my neck in our _wedding pictures.”_ She kissed him again, pulling back to murmur, “and it hasn’t been a month.” 

“It’s been twenty-seven days, Amy. That’s basically a month, especially considering we normally don’t go more than like _five_ days.” He kissed her again, then pulled back to look in her eyes, his own deep and dark and full of adoration. “We’re getting married,” he whispered, his smile clear in his voice. He pressed a warm kiss to the space beneath her jaw, humming when she pulled him closer. 

“Just one more night,” she whispered back, her hand stroking him slow and even through two layers of fabric. 

He let out a rough breath. “Please— _please_ , you know that voice counts. I’m so turned on—”

“Me too—”

“Why are we doing this? We’re so good at sex.” 

“We’re stupid good at sex,” she agreed, her grip tightening and making him squirm. 

“Fuck, fuck, fuck—no sex,” he whispered. He squeezed his eyes shut, his hips shifting against her unintentionally. “Fuck— _mmm_ —I’m sorry.” 

“I want you,” she murmured. 

“Ames.” He whimpered against her neck. “Why are you doing this to me?” 

“I don’t know why I did this to either of us.” She tugged at his button until it popped open, but he caught her wrist before she could shove her hand in his pants. 

“One more night,” he whispered. “We made it this far.”

“The rule was no sex, Jake.” 

He blinked at her like she’d just said the dumbest thing he’d ever heard. Her eyes glimmered with mischief. “That’s what I just said.”

“The rule was no sex, _not_ no making you come,” she clarified. 

He blinked at her, his breath hitching. “Only touching?” She nodded slowly. “That’s such a loophole it’s practically breaking the rule.”

“Oh, that’s fine.” She began rebuttoning his pants. “I can always go back to my own room and just—”

He grabbed her hands to stop her. “It’s hot as hell, you’re hot as hell, and I can’t believe I get to marry you.” 

She pulled him into another kiss, tugging his pants down until they fell to the floor, where he haphazardly stepped out of them, kicking his shoes off as he went. She continued her teasing through his boxers while he busied his hands underneath her dress. 

“Mmmm, you know what this reminds me of?” 

“That time in Shaw’s bathroom?” 

She laughed, her head tipping down to lean on his shoulder. “How’d you know?” 

“You pulled me in there just like this, and I slid my hand up your dress,” he paused, groaning softly as he slipped his fingers into the side of her underwear, “just like this.” 

“That was right after I transferred to the nine-nine.” She tipped her head back against the wall, gasping as he touched her. He immediately went in to kiss her neck, then pulled back when he recalled that he couldn’t accidentally leave any marks. 

“We were just friends,” he murmured against her skin. 

“Just friends,” she laughed. “We were never just friends.” 

“I tried to tell you that.” 

She tightened her grip, a retaliation against his _I told you so_ tone. He slipped his hand back out from under her dress, pulling her up into his arms. He walked her over to the bed, turning so he could sit down with her straddling his lap. His fingers traced along the outside of her thighs.

“Have I ever told you how pretty you look in white?” 

“One more day,” she whispered. 

“One more day,” he agreed. 

“You look ridiculous.” She tugged at the knot on his tie, already loosened from when he’d come into his room alone, laughing at his dishevelled, partially unbuttoned dress shirt on top, nothing but boxers straining against his erection.

He gasped in mock offense. “After I just called you pretty?” 

“Mmmm, you’re pretty, too.” She pushed closer, pausing to kiss him. “Take off your shirt, Jake.” 

He laid back on the bed, hastily doing what he was told while she finished pulling off his tie. He made quick work of pulling his arms out of his sleeves, tossing the shirt off the bed as she tossed the tie in another direction. He hummed, sliding his hands underneath her dress again, tracing along her hips, fingers playing with the edge of lace. “Fuck, I want you so bad.” 

Instead of replying, she laid against his chest, her hands moving straight back to his hair. His hands slipped back outside of her dress, following the curve of her waist. He hummed as he pulled her closer, one of his hands moving to fiddle with the zipper on her back. She pulled her arms out of the dress, letting it bunch up at her hips. His hands moved to her chest. 

“Mmmm, missed these.” She laughed softly when his head dipped down to start pressing kisses across her chest. A quiet little moan escaped her lips when his tongue flicked across her nipple, and then she was sitting up, tugging her dress over her head so that the only thing between them was their underwear. She raked her fingernails against his chest gently. He grabbed handfuls of her chest, closing his eyes and arching his hips a little closer to her. 

Then, without warning, her hands on his chest served as an anchor point as she rutted against him. He groaned, his hands moving straight to her hips to help her grind closer. She laughed, shaking her head. 

“Mm-mm, no.” She laced her fingers with his, then leaned forward to pin his hands down above his head. She continued grinding against him, pulling groans and sighs out of him with each motion. 

“Fuck, I love it when you take control.” 

“Yeah? You like this?” 

He turned his head, his tongue coming out to press a wet kiss to her wrist. “God, yes.” 

He craned his neck so he could kiss her chest as she continued repeating her motion, both of them humming and whimpering. 

“Mmmm, you remember the first time you cuffed me?” He tried to gently tug his wrist out of her grip, but she didn’t let up. “Wanna fuck you like that tomorrow.” 

“You want me to cuff you on our wedding night?” She asked incredulously. 

“No, no.” He groaned as she sped up her hips a little. “No, I wanna fuck you slow like that, that perfect pace, _fuck_ —mmmm, fuck—”

She laughed softly. “I bet I could make you come by just talking to you right now.” 

“I promise you could, but please don’t stop doing that.” He took a deep breath, his hands twitching in her grip. “Feels so good. I wanna taste you.” 

She sat back up, replacing her hands on his chest and looking down at him. “It’s called oral _sex_ , Jake. Haven’t you ever taken a health class?”

“It’s not _real_ sex, c’mon.” His lips slipped apart when she raised her eyebrows at him and punctuated the refusal by rotating her hips. 

“No sex.” 

“Then let me…” He slid his hands up her thighs, settling on her hips. He watched her smug smile stretch across her lips, and as much as he wanted to tease her and get that look off of her face, he couldn’t. His eyes drifted shut, his head tipping back as he moved their bodies together, humming and whispering incoherently as he chased the sensation. 

She dug her fingers into his shoulder, grinning at the breathy moan that left him when her hips worked with his. “You’re that turned on?” 

“Twenty-seven days, Amy.” He peeked at her between his eyelids. “Twenty-seven days.” 

“You know you could’ve taken care of _yourself_ during this month, right?” He stopped moving, his eyes opening a little further. “I have been.” 

“I’m sorry—” He shifted her off of his lap, sitting up in the same movement. She whined. “Look, if we’re gonna talk about you fucking yourself, you can’t be in my lap. But _no_ , I didn’t know that, because you never _said that.”_ He shook his head incredulously. “You’ve been masturbating?” 

“You haven’t been?” 

“No! I thought that was the point of all of this!” 

“So you haven’t had an orgasm in—”

“Twenty-seven days, Amy. It’s been _twenty-seven days!”_

Her bottom lip jutted out a bit. “You poor thing.” She reached for him, stroking him through his boxers. “No wonder you’re so pent up.” 

“Mm-mm.” He pushed her hand away. “You never told me that I _could.”_

“I didn’t think I had to! I thought it was clear that _no sex_ just meant we couldn’t fuck each other.” She trailed her hand across his inner thigh. His eyebrows drew together as he watched her fingers moving across his skin. 

“You said _no sex_ , and I thought that meant no sex with _myself_ either.”

Her hand crept its way back into his lap. “Clearly you _haven’t_ taken a health class, because _that_ isn’t sex.” He stared blankly at her, and she stifled a laugh against his skin. “I’m sorry, babe. Let me make it up to you.” 

He grabbed her wrist. “No.” 

“No?” She tilted her head, her hand slowly pulling away from him. 

He shook his head. “No. If we’re going to do this, we’re doing it my way.” The corners of her lips turned up at that. He reached for her, his thumb slipping below the lace on her hips. “Take these off.” 

“Jake.” 

“No sex. Only touching.” He looked at her seriously, maintaining his expression even when she raised her eyebrows at him, her eyes clearly saying _we both know what’s going to happen if I take these off._ “I promise you, Ames. No sex. I wouldn’t fuck you right now if you _begged me.”_

She wrinkled her face up at that. “Okay, I _highly_ doubt that.” 

“Try me.” 

She stared at him for a moment, holding his gaze as she leaned back to pull her underwear off like she was told. She raised an eyebrow as she tossed them onto the floor, settling in front of him and waiting for further instruction. 

He followed her lead, pulling his boxers off and tossing them down with her underwear. She let out a little huff of air through her nose as her eyes flickered across his newly exposed skin. His lips pulled into a smirk. “Alright. C’mere.” 

She raised her eyebrows again. _“Jake.”_

_“Amy,”_ he shot back. “Do you trust me?” 

She pursed her lips. “I don’t trust either of us when we’re this horny.” 

He laughed. “Okay, you’re not wrong. But c’mon. No sex, babe. You have my word.” 

She studied him for a moment, then wordlessly moved toward his lap, climbing up to straddle him again. He gripped her thighs when she was just about to settle against him. “Mmmm, nope. Not like that.” 

He was slow to move, gripping her close as he shifted her around so that her back was against his chest. 

“Like that,” he whispered, raising goosebumps on her neck where his words fell. “God, you look so beautiful.” 

Arousal was already twisting in her stomach, his erection pressing against her back doing absolutely nothing to help the situation. He started a trail of soft, warm kisses just underneath her ear, trailing them down her neck and onto her shoulder. His fingers traced her inner thigh. His lips retraced their path, settling for nibbling at her earlobe. 

“I can’t believe you’re finally gonna be my wife tomorrow.” 

She looped an arm around his neck, turning just enough that she could kiss him hungrily. She leaned her head on his shoulder. “Do you think they’ll notice if we show up late to the reception?” 

He chuckled, his left hand hitching between her thighs, pulling them further apart. She gasped, leaning further against him. “You’re just gonna have to wait until after the reception, Ames.” 

She twisted more so that she was leaning against his chest on her side. “I don’t know if I can wait that long.” 

He made an amused sound, his fingers falling into a familiar pattern, his breath hitching at how wet she already was for him. “Guess I’ll just have to give you something to tide you over until then.” 

Her eyebrows drew together, and he bit the smirk away from his lips as he pulled breathy sounds out of her. He could see her trying to hold back, trying to resist each movement that he _knew_ would get her exactly where he wanted her. 

“This was a bad idea,” she whimpered against his neck. “I want you.”

He hummed appreciatively, adjusting to work his fingers into her at a better angle. Their bad ideas were always his favorite ones. She leaned her head back on his shoulder, her eyes locked on his, her mouth falling open. 

“That’s right,” he murmured, pressing a kiss to her temple. He snaked his other arm around her waist, his thumb brushing across her clit. “Good girl, just like that.” 

She shifted against him, her hips rocking toward his hand. She moaned softly, biting her lip to try and stay quiet. He nudged her chin with his nose. 

“Mm-mm, babe. Don’t be quiet. Tell me about it, I wanna hear you.” 

She arched her back, another sound slipping out of her lips. He continued with his gentle encouragements, his fingers working into a faster rhythm. She reached behind her back, he thought to support herself, but then she grasped him, quickly matching his pace. 

She giggled when his head dropped against hers. He groaned into her hair, his arms tightening around her, bringing her closer. 

“Can’t believe you’ve gone twenty-seven days without this.” She kissed along his jaw, gasping when he crooked his fingers deeper. “Let me take care of you, babe.” He nodded, whining quietly. “Let me make it all better.” 

“You’re not fair—fuck, this isn’t fair.” His voice rasped, his head tipping back again. He thrusted into her hand, then stilled, gasping against her skin. The rhythm of the fingers pumping into her faltered. 

“Mmmm, feels good?” 

“Yeah,” he whispered, nodding again, his hips experimentally stirring. 

“Do it again.” 

“Mhm.” He followed her instruction, thrusting his hips a second time, then a third. 

“Wait, wait,” Amy interrupted, pulling the hand between her legs away and letting go of him. He whimpered, but he let her guide him. 

She directed his hand behind her back, wrapping his fingers around himself and guiding his hand for him. 

“So wet for me,” he murmured breathily, his voice a raspy growl against her throat. 

She was silent for a moment, just guiding his hand into a slow rhythm and admiring the sounds he made in response. 

“Okay, touch me,” she whispered, replacing his hand with hers when he immediately followed her directions. 

He gasped softly, his breath falling against her ear. He shook his head, his breath coming out slow and harsh. He was much less resistant to all the sounds that were already slowly tumbling out of his mouth with each breath. His hips worked to match the pace his fingers set for them. 

“Jake—”

“Fuck, oh my god,” he shook his head, already way closer to finishing than he wanted to be, her saying his name like that doing nothing to help his self-control. 

“I changed my mind. I want you. Please just—” She let go of him, already shifting in his lap by the time his frustrated groan made it out of his lips. “I wanna ride your cock,” she shifted to bring herself closer, seemingly unaffected by the intentional words that had little ripples of desire shooting through his entire body, “slow—what was it you said? The perfect pace?” His breath hitched when she dragged the tip of his dick across her, slipping and sliding and making him groan. He hummed against her neck, leaning into her touch. She positioned him, so all he had to do was jerk his hips forward slightly and he’d be pushing into her. He shook his head, biting softly at her collarbone, his hands tightening on her waist as he lifted her further away from him. 

He was breathing hard, panting against her skin, a level of incoherence to him that he couldn’t remember ever feeling before. “Tomorrow— _fuck, baby, please_ , just—mmmm, one more day.” 

_“One more day,”_ she mimicked, her lips ghosting across his earlobe, “but I want you right now.” She shifted again, a satisfied hum escaping her lips when he set her in his lap, his dick trapped between them. “I want you so bad, Jake. And I think you want this, too.”

“Mhm.” He nodded, trying and failing to find real words and just a single ounce of self-restraint. “Mmmm, mhm.” 

He whimpered against her lips as he pulled her in for a searing kiss. She raked her fingers through his hair, pulling away to bite her lip through her laughter. “Am I breaking you down yet?” 

He laughed, craning his neck to follow her lead and gently pulling her bottom lip between his teeth. “Not even a little bit.” 

“You’re a bad liar.” 

He grinned. “Mhmmm. You’re totally breaking me down. But it’s not happening tonight, Ames. My self control is—” He cut off on an abrupt moan when she began grinding against him again.

“What were you saying?” 

He smiled up at her, trying to correct his breathing. “I love you.” 

“I love you, too.” 

“Uh-huh.” He wrapped his arm around her waist, twisting her so that her back was against his chest again. “Then let me make you come. And let me kiss you all over,” he paused, his fingers slipping between her legs, “and let me hold you,” he pressed a slow kiss just below her jaw, “and let me love you, and let me fall asleep with you, and let me _marry you,”_ she moaned, and he wasn’t sure if it was because of his words or the way he slowly worked her with his fingers, but the sound he made in response was satisfied and amused all at once. “I wanna do it all with you, Amy. Every little thing.” 

She looked at him seriously, fighting the way her eyes tried to close. _“Jake._ Fuck me. Please.” 

He laughed, his teeth grazing across her skin. “You’re right to not trust yourself when you’re horny.” He paused to press warm kisses back across her shoulder, trailing his way up to whisper in her ear. “But you can always trust me, Ames.” 

She pulled his fingers away again, amused, but not quite laughing at his frustrated sigh. She adjusted in his lap, turning once again so she was straddling him. His hands moved to her hips to restrain her, though the only thing she could see in his dark eyes was desire. 

“I know. And I do. And I love you so much, and I’m so grateful that you’re trying to do this for me. But it was a stupid rule, and I don’t want it anymore. I want to be with you now. And always.” Her fingers framed his jaw, tipping his head up, resisting a giggle as he moaned into the slow kiss she offered. “But especially right now.” 

“I mean, we had a rehearsal dinner…” He hummed against her skin, laughing softly when she shivered against him. “Maybe we need a rehearsal for this, too.” 

“Rehearsal sex?” 

“Mmm,” he hummed in agreement, pressing wet kisses across her collarbone. “Nobody does any sort of performance without rehearsing, right?”

“And it’s been—”

“Twenty-seven days,” he interrupted, his teeth grazing her skin, another shiver rippling through her. 

“They’re our rules.” She swallowed, turning her head, her lips ghosting against his. His eyes were trained on her lips as he tried to kiss her, but she leaned away slightly, a smirk on her lips as he tried to chase the movement. “We can break them if we want to.” 

“I want to.” His voice was low and rough, a rushed sort of pleading restraint she’d missed hearing from him, the kind he got when she teased him a little in public or sent him a suggestive text while he was at work. He’d call her on his break, his voice almost level except for that little edge that she knew so well—and she hadn’t realized how much she’d been craving it until she heard it again. “I want to if you do.” 

“I do.” 

He groaned quietly. “God, I can’t wait to hear you say that tomorrow.” 

He looked up at her, his eyes full of more wonder than she was sure she’d ever seen. He nodded slowly, his lips brushing against hers, his hands set on pulling her closer. She reached between them, positioning him as he took hold of her hips, lifting her and guiding her until they were just barely touching. There was a moment of calm, a sort of anticipation coursing through them, his fingertips twitching against her skin as he resisted the urge to push forward. He wanted to live in this moment, to remember the way her eyes took him in, to savor the emotion running high, all the love between them so strong that it was practically tangible. 

He licked his lips. “Are you sure?” 

Amy pressed her lips to his again, the hand that wasn’t on his jaw carding through his hair. “The only thing I’ve ever been more sure of…” She pulled away to look into his eyes, her thumb sweeping across his cheekbone. “Is marrying you.” 

He didn’t have a chance to share her sentiment, because as soon as the words left her mouth, she was lowering herself onto him, her hand still tipping his face toward hers, though his eyes were now squeezed shut, and all he could manage was a strangled sigh. 

She gave him a moment, moving torturously slow, trying to breathe through each movement, minimizing each sound she made so as to not push him over the edge like his tight grip on her hips suggested she might. Then, all of a sudden, it was like something broke inside her. She’d been wanting this just as badly as him. She anchored her hands on his shoulders, grinding closer to him with each movement. 

“Did you miss this as much as I did?” 

That voice on its own raised goosebumps on his skin, his enthusiastic agreement coming out just as incoherently as she’d expected it to. His fingers squeezed at her hips, not so much guiding her along him as he was helping her to keep the pace she set that was completely wrecking him. 

“Yes, god, fuck, I missed this. Fuck, Ames, I need you—love you so much, I’m—” He trailed off, burying his face, along with a groan, in her chest. “Been dreaming about this, been craving you—fuck, I love your body.” 

She laughed, her fingers tugging through the hair at the nape of his neck, his words tapering off into a whimper. His hands gripped at her helplessly, squeezing too tight on her thighs, then catching himself and letting go, only to squeeze too tight on her hips seconds later. 

“Fuck— _fuck_ , faster—please, faster— _please,_ I need… I need—”

Amy laughed softly, bouncing her hips a little faster just long enough to admire his reaction. His hands dropped off of her, his fingers frantically balling up the comforter and squeezing, his whole body tensing with the movement—a move she recognized. He didn’t want it to be over. She stopped moving completely, a teasing grin stretching across her lips as Jake’s eyes slowly blinked open, his hands feeling around for her in a way that was almost timid. 

“S’too much,” he rasped. 

“You’re too much fun like this. I wouldn’t mind seeing you like this more often.” 

He was about to respond, to refute her claim, she was sure, but she was already rocking against him again, so he just gasped and tangled his fingers in his hair. He bit his lip, trying and failing to keep quiet, and then he was shaking his head at her. 

Her laughter trailed off into a sigh. “What?” 

He shook his head again, his eyes determined to stay on hers as he sat up to join her, his hands clutching at her waist, bringing her closer. He whimpered against her neck as he took a little more control, his breath becoming shallower as he worked to help guide her while simultaneously thrusting harder. One of her hands gripped at his back, the other coming up to tug through his hair, her moans buried against his neck. 

“Tell me how much you missed this,” he whispered, pulling her hips down a little harder, earning himself a more enthusiastic moan. 

“So—mmmm, so much, Jake.” 

He shook his head again, like he was trying to shake off the distraction, trying to clear his head. In an instant, his focus was all on her. He tipped her back with him, pressing her into the mattress. He stroked his fingertips along her cheek, then brushed her hair up out of her face. 

“You’re so beautiful, Ames. I can’t wait to see you walking down the aisle tomorrow.” 

Her lips slipped apart with a little moan, so his thumb moved to trace along her bottom lip. Her tongue flicked out to taste him, her lips closing around his thumb prompting his grip on her thigh to momentarily tighten. He chuckled as he pulled his hand away, her eyes set on him in a way that made his breath hitch. 

“I, uhm…” He swallowed, his hips keeping up their steady rhythm that was nowhere near as fast as he was craving, but he was _multitasking_ , damn it. “Fuck, I don’t know how I got this lucky.” He leaned his forehead against her neck for a moment, a groan building in the back of his throat and melting against her skin. “I’ve never felt this—” He paused, intent on making sure he kissed every centimeter of skin in his reach. “This secure. Or this _safe?_ Mmmm, with anyone before.” 

He pulled back enough that he could look into her eyes, admiring every sound—each sigh and hum and whimper—that she made with each press of his hips. She clutched him closer, her back arching to meet his efforts. 

“I love you, Ja— _oh fuck_ , right there.” 

He groaned again, a deep sigh escaping him with yet another ounce of his self control as he followed her instructions. “I love you.” He couldn’t stop touching her if he tried, touching her anywhere, touching her everywhere—her face, her hair, her waist, his fingers lacing with hers, bringing her hand to his lips, gentle kisses pressed to her palm. “You’re just,” he shook his head again, _“fuck,_ you’re everything, Ames. You’re everything to me. And my favorite moments with you are the soft ones, the ones where it’s just—” 

He whimpered when she tugged at his hair again, interrupting his words with a kiss. He obliged her for a moment, his tongue moving with hers. Her tongue was in his mouth and her hands were skimming across his back, and every part of him was wrapped up in the most spectacular woman he’d ever met. His favorite satisfied hum left her lips as he pulled back again, his forehead leaning against hers. 

“The ones where it’s just us,” he finished. His hips slowed considerably, driving into her gently, _gently_ , and it somehow wasn’t enough and was too much all at once. He breathed a laugh when she whined, arching to shift him deeper, her body language begging him for more even when her words weren’t. One last time, he brushed his fingers up to push her hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear and giving himself a moment to just admire her, all wound up and dishevelled for him. And then, to really drive his point home, he stilled completely. 

“But _fuck_ , I’ve really missed watching you come for me.” 

And then perfect pace be damned, he was pounding into her hard enough that she didn’t have a chance at staying quiet. After a frantic _fuck_ and a moan that shot right to the top of his _prettiest sounds he’s ever heard in his life_ list, his hand found its way to cover her mouth, trying to keep her quiet and at least _maybe_ prevent everyone in their hallway from knowing that she was in his room. She whimpered against his hand, and every muffled sound wrecked him more than the last until she was faltering, gasping and arching and clutching him closer, her fingers digging into his shoulder, threading into his hair, and she was coming, dragging him down with her in a matter of seconds. 

They rolled apart, breathless and exhausted. Jake reached over to tangle his fingers with hers again, his head dropping onto her shoulder, searching for contact. He took a moment to catch his breath, pressing kisses to her shoulder. 

“Stay,” he whispered. Fuck everyone’s dumb rules. They should be able to sleep together if they wanted to. 

“Okay,” she whispered back, “but I have to sneak out in the morning.” 

He definitely thought she was going to fight it more than that, but then she was pushing against him and twisting and it took him a second to figure out what she was doing, but he realized she was trying to get him to roll onto his side. He raised an eyebrow, but obliged her, shifting onto his side and tugging at the sheet, providing a barrier between them and the air that felt so cold against the sweat cooling on their skin. He hummed happily when she pulled herself closer, her chest pressing to his back, her arm wrapped loosely around his waist. She was letting him be the little spoon the night before their wedding. His eyes immediately drifted shut when her other hand moved to start twisting through his curls. 

The silence between them was comfortable and familiar, but Jake had no problem sleepily breaking it. 

“Don’t tell her I said this…” He turned his head, peeking at Amy from the corner of his eye. “But Kylie was totally right.” 

He smiled when her laughter breezed against his neck. “It was so good.” She hummed, like she was remembering something specific. “But I’m never going a month without fucking you again.” 

He turned slowly, this look resembling more of a glare than a glance. “It wasn’t a month, _Amy._ It was twenty-seven days.” 

He knew she was rolling her eyes without even seeing her. There was another short bout of silence, Jake fighting the urge to drift off. On the one hand, the faster he fell asleep, the faster he’d finally get to marry her. But if he fell asleep, this moment would be over, and he just wasn’t quite ready to accept that yet. 

“Hey, Jake?” 

“Mmm?” 

“It’s not luck.” 

He laughed softly. “What are you talking about?” 

Her fingers traced across his ribs lazily. “You said you don’t know how you got so lucky.” She paused for a moment, nuzzling her face into the crook of his neck and making him squirm when it tickled. “You didn’t.” 

“Ames, c’mon, you’re—”

“No,” she interrupted. “It’s not about me.” He quieted, his lips tugging into a smile when a yawn interrupted her words. “You didn’t get lucky, Jake. You’ve worked for every part of this. Don’t give that credit to luck.” 

He laced their fingers together, then pulled her hand up to his mouth, his lips brushing against the back of her knuckles as he spoke. “It just feels like… I don’t know. It’s luck that I bumped into you in the first place, Ames. And the luck never ran out.” 

She pulled back, shifting away from him, and he immediately turned in search of her touch, an accusatory glance tossed in her direction for moving away from him in the first place. But then he was looking at her… and _fuck,_ he was just so in love. He was _marrying her_. And yeah, objectively, he _knew_ that they’d both put a lot of work into their relationship. He knew that he’d been making better choices with his money. He knew that he had taken great strides in talking about his feelings. He knew that he’d learned to compromise—and learned again, and then _again_ , because compromising was hard for both of them sometimes, but they were getting there. 

The thing was that it never felt like work with her. 

And it totally should feel like work. It should feel like work to have to learn how to actually budget, to learn how to effectively use a savings account. Instead, it felt like building a future with her. It should feel like work to actually care about the future in that way, to actually _plan_. But it didn’t. They’d budgeted and saved and planned for this wedding, and while there were definitely moments that were stressful—a few tense moments over _I don’t know, Amy, they all look fucking white to me_ and _these two colors could not look more different if they fucking tried_ —but overall, it hadn’t felt like work at all. It felt like love. It felt like spending time with his best friend. It felt like finding new opportunities to make her smile. It felt like daydreaming about spinning her around a dance floor in a sparkly, white (or was it ivory?) dress. 

“Jake…” She smiled softly at him, her fingers carding through his hair, then the back of her knuckles following the curve of his cheek. The look on her face struck him with emotion before she even spoke. His hand moved to cover hers. He could blame it on the twenty-seven day build up to the orgasm he’d just had, or he could blame it on the fact that their wedding was tomorrow, or he could blame it on the fact that he hadn’t been getting enough sleep with all the running around they’d been doing over the past week, but the simple truth was that Amy just did that for him. She made him feel warm. She made him feel soft. She made him feel _whole_ , and sometimes it hit him like a ton of bricks, and in those moments, swallowing back the emotion was all but impossible.

She seemed to be struggling with the same emotion. He laid next to her, his eyes trained on her in the darkness of the room. Her eyes sparkled in the dim light the same way that he’s sure his were, shining with the hint of unshed tears, her smile small, but radiant as ever, even with nothing but the lamp in the corner of the room illuminating her. 

“Maybe it started as luck that day. But you haven’t needed luck with me in years, Jake. This…” She slid her hand down, pressing it firmly to his chest and aiming a brief smile at the quick rhythm of his heart thumping underneath her hand. “Is everything to me. You are. And you deserve the credit for that. Not _luck.”_ She paused for a moment, reaching out and taking his hand with her free hand, guiding it over her own heart and holding it there. “And this… Just… it’s important to me that you know. How important you are to me.” 

He let out a breathless laugh, trying to swallow back the overwhelming emotion bursting in his chest. “I love you so much.” 

“I love you, too.” 

He snuggled her closer, his free arm tightening around her. His lips pressed to her forehead, a series of soft, slow kisses trailed down the bridge of her nose until he was nuzzling his forehead against hers, offering her the gentlest kisses he could muster, both of them sharing soft laughter as they held back the happiest tears he was sure he’d ever been faced with. Her fingers traced through his hair, and _fuck_ , he wanted to stay awake, to solidify this moment in his memory so he could always keep it with him, but she was so warm and soft and close, and her fingers were so attuned to him, knew exactly which patterns to trace in his hair to put him straight to sleep. Her breath was so even, and his eyes just felt so heavy when he tried to blink awake. 

He just hoped that he was coherent when he tried to murmur out a sleepy _goodnight_ to her. He fell asleep with his lips pressed to her forehead, his hand on her heart, and not a single doubt in his mind. 

__

“They really said fuck the no sex rule, huh?” 

“I told you she wouldn’t last through the night. I knew the second I dropped her off here.”

“Mmmmmmmmmmmm,” Jake groaned, much louder and more dramatic than the situation really called for, he was sure. He opened his eyes, squinting against the light as Gina pulled the curtains open, flooding the room with light. 

“Get up.” 

He clutched Amy closer, feeling around for the blanket and pulling it up higher on her body, his hands feeling around on her body to confirm that she was covered. She hummed sleepily, nestling her face closer to his chest. 

Gina pulled at the corner of the blanket on his side. He kicked gently at her. “Stop, I’m naked.” 

“I’ve seen you naked before, Jake. Grow up.” She tugged the blanket a little harder. “Get out of bed, we have to get Amy back to her room.” 

“Mmmm, no.” He grunted, kicking in Gina’s direction again. “Not ready to let her go. Go away.” 

“You guys have a whole honeymoon coming up,” Rosa reasoned. “She has to get ready to marry you. Get up.” 

“She can marry me just like this and—” Jake gasped, jumping and startling Amy awake. He rubbed the back of his arm where Rosa had pinched him. _“Ow,_ what the fuck?” 

“I told you to get up.” Rosa shrugged. “Morning, Amy.” 

Amy frowned, rubbing at her eyes and snuggling in closer to Jake again. “What’s going on?” 

“We’re here on a rescue mission, dummy. We have to get you back in your room before Kylie wakes up.” Gina rolled her eyes. “Get dressed.” 

Rosa tossed Amy’s crumpled white dress onto the bed. “Because you know we’re never going to hear the end of it if Kylie finds out we helped you get laid last night.” 

Amy’s eyebrows wrinkled up at that. Jake chuckled quietly, pressing a kiss to her forehead. 

“Oh my god,” Amy finally murmured, like what they’d said had finally just hit her. “We’re getting married today.” 

A genuine smile stretched across Jake’s lips. “We’re getting married today, Ames.” 

“Oh my god, I have to go.”

Jake mumbled protests, but shifted out of the way when she pulled the dress under the blankets and began pulling it on. She rolled over once she had it on. 

“Zip me?” 

Jake grumbled quietly, his fingertips tracing up her spine before he tugged the zipper into place. She stretched up to kiss him, pausing to share a private smile with him. He smiled back, all his mock annoyance melting away. She crawled out from under the blanket, shifting to straddle him on her way to climb over him and get out of bed. She smacked her hand gently on his chest. 

“Okay. I’ll see you later.” 

His smile stretched wider. “I can’t wait.” 

She leaned forward to kiss him again, her arms wrapping around his neck. Rosa made a disgusted sound behind them, but when they turned to look at her, she was smiling and rolling her eyes. 

“You love us,” Jake murmured, pausing to wrinkle his eyebrows at Gina where she had her phone pointed at them. 

“Blackmail purposes,” Gina informed. 

“I do love you,” Rosa replied, her eyebrow arched. “But if Kylie finds out that we snuck you over here and I have to hear about it, both of you get your Babylon privileges revoked for at least six months.”

“Oh my god, Amy, go, c’mon.” Jake lightly tapped her thigh, trying to shift her off of him. “Wait—” He pulled her back into place, stretching up to give her one last slow kiss. “Okay, hurry, go.” 

She laughed, shuffling off of his lap and making her way over to Gina and Rosa. Gina pulled the large sunglasses off of her face and placed them onto Amy. She turned and picked up the floppy hat from the top of the dresser. “Okay, you look like you finally learned what sex is and immediately fucked Jake for several consecutive hours.” Amy scoffed. Jake snickered at that, and all three women rolled their eyes at him. “So if we run into anyone we know, do not engage. Keep your head down. We’re taking you straight to your room and you’re getting right in the shower so there’s no evidence. Got it?” 

“Yeah, I got it.” 

“Okay. Rosa, lead the way.” 

Jake laughed again from his place on the bed, amused at the absolute drama of three of his favorite women in the world trying to get back to Amy’s room unnoticed. He felt warm all over, full of love and appreciation and wonder, astounded once again that he could be lucky enough to be surrounded by the people in his life. Rosa pulled the door open, and a series of sounds echoed into the room. First, Amy gasped. At almost the exact same time, a man grunted in pain. Seconds later, Gina was laughing. 

“Why did you hit me?” Charles squeaked breathlessly. All of the women receded back into the room, Charles closely following. 

“Why were you standing so close to the door?” Rosa shot back.

“Be _quiet_ , Charles!” Gina hissed. “You’re gonna get us caught.” 

“Why did you leave my room service cart in the hallway?” 

“Room service cart?” Jake asked. 

“Oh! Look at the groom on his wedding day.” Charles beamed at Jake, seemingly forgetting about the punch to the gut he’d received only moments earlier. “You’re glowing!”

“The bride is right next to you, buddy.” 

“I’m supposed to be pretending she’s not here. Besides, she has her team. As your BM, I’m Team Groom today.” 

Jake made a face, but didn’t correct him. “What room service cart?” 

“I ordered you guys a room service cart last night when I saw Gina and Rosa sneaking Amy over.” 

Amy pulled her sunglasses down a bit on her face. “Do I even want to know what you sent?” 

“You know, just the normal stuff. Strawberries, whipped cream, a bottle of lube I picked up from the store down the street—”

“Okay—” Amy held her hands up, effectively stopping Charles mid-sentence. 

Jake laughed. “I mean, to be fair, we could’ve used it…” 

“I _told you!”_ Gina snapped at Rosa. “You said maybe they didn’t, but I _told you.”_

Amy shifted her weight nervously at the door. “Okay, you guys, Kylie’s gonna be up any minute! Let’s go.” 

“Yeah, some days we _need_ Babylon. We can’t give it up for six whole months because you guys are stalling.” 

Gina scoffed. “C’mon, married people don’t have sex, anyways. Tell them, Charles.” 

Charles pursed his lips, nodding in agreement. “I mean, with me and Eleanor—”

“Okay, _Boyle_ , now is not the time,” Jake interrupted. 

“And we don’t have sex in Babylon,” Amy tacked on. 

Jake opened his mouth, then immediately shut it again. Amy glared at him. 

“Oh, c’mon. You guys aren’t exactly slick about it. We all know.” 

Amy’s jaw dropped at Rosa’s nonchalance. Jake chuckled. “Look, I’m marrying her today. I’m, like, _legally_ the keeper of all her secrets now.” 

“So you admit that there are secrets to keep?” Charles squeaked, this time less out of pain and more out of insinuation. 

“It happened _one_ time!” Amy finally amended.

 _“Oral sex is sex, haven’t you ever taken a health class?”_ Jake mimicked her from the night before.

The warmth spreading across her cheeks tugged at Jake’s heart the way it always did. She crossed her arms. “Can we please go?” 

“You guys disappear moments after each other, and Jake always comes back with that stupid face he makes,” Gina continued.

Jake scoffed. “My face isn’t stupid.”

“No, it’s beautiful,” Charles finished. 

Jake’s eyebrows wrinkled together, but he smiled and nodded. “Thanks, Boyle.” 

Rosa opened the door again, peeking around the doorframe. “Okay, I might rather listen to Kylie. C’mon.” 

“Love you, Ames!” Jake called from the bed. 

She furrowed her eyebrows at him, but her expression quickly shifted into a smile. “I love you, too. I’ll see you later.” 

“I really can’t wait.” 

“God, you guys are gross,” Gina muttered, practically dragging Amy out of the room behind her. 

—

It had been four hours since Jake had last seen Amy. There were still three hours until the ceremony. He hadn’t talked to her, but he just knew that their mothers were driving her crazy just a few rooms away from him. He wished he could be in there with her, could hold her hand when the buzz of voices inevitably got under her skin. He wanted to be there to raise an eyebrow at her in that way he always did when the minutes ticked by too slow and her mind was supplying her with a list of things to be nervous about. He wanted to hear her laughter, to let her presence quell his own tingling nerves. 

His hotel room was abuzz with activity. All of Amy’s brothers were there, in various states of dress. Benji had been fully suited up for hours, while Mateo was still sporting boxers, socks, a suit jacket, and a tie, despite Tony’s several threats against his life if he didn’t _put on his fucking clothes._

For the most part, Jake was ignoring it all. Julian was in charge of the music, so he was bouncing nervously in his seat to the rhythm of some early 2000s pop song. It wasn’t too hard to be distracted, because his mind just kept getting tugged to Amy. Amy, Amy, Amy. What was she doing, and how was she feeling, and what did her dress look like, and was she nervous like him? 

He was _so_ nervous. 

But not about Amy. He was nervous about the wedding, but not about the marriage. He had never been more sure of anything than he was of Amy. He just kept picturing the moment that he’d first see her walking down the aisle toward him. He had a lump in his throat just at the thought of it. He didn’t even care that he was probably going to cry in front of every important person in their lives. All he cared about was standing at the end of that aisle with her. 

He was still thinking about all of this when Victor peeked his head into the room. 

“Boys?” Victor stepped into the room a little more. Jake turned his head to give his future father-in-law his full attention. “Amy’s ready. She wants you guys in there now.”

Jake made a noncommittal noise. “Lucky.” 

Tony thumped Mateo on the back of the head, helping him to adjust his tie while he finished buttoning his shirt. Luke and Eli offered Jake high-fives. Julian practically climbed in his lap for a hug. When Tony finished dressing Mateo, he shoved him in Jake’s direction. Mateo stumbled, grumbled at Tony, then fist bumped Jake. David cut in front of Tony to pull Jake into a half hug, so Tony took it upon himself to shove David in the direction of the door when he was done. Victor rolled his eyes at his Tony, who shrugged as he squeezed Jake’s shoulder. 

“You got it, man.” Jake nodded, clapping his hand over Tony’s. “I’ll see you out there.” 

Jake took a steadying breath as Tony walked out. Benji smiled wide at him from across the room, making his way over to him with about as much excitement as second-grade-Jake on pizza day. Jake stood up to meet Benji for what was the tightest and most heartfelt hug from all the brothers. They swayed for a second, Benji shaking his head when he pulled out of the hug. He gripped Jake’s shoulders, looking at him seriously. 

“You know, you once told me that you knew I’d always worry about Amy, because she’s my sister and my best friend, or whatever. But you were wrong.” He shrugged, pausing for a long moment. “I’m not worried about her at all when she’s with you.” A slow smile stretched across Jake’s face, and Benji nodded encouragingly. “I knew you were going to marry her the day I met you, Peralta. And I’m really glad I was right.” 

“Alright, c’mon, Ben. Don’t make the boy cry.” Victor laughed lightly from the doorway. 

“Yeah, save your tears for Amy, Jake.” Charles agreed. 

“You guys, he has enough tears to go around.” Benji glared at his dad, then slung his arm around Jake’s shoulders. “Let me tease my new baby brother.” 

“I’m like two months younger than you.”

“Benjamin. Your sister’s waiting.” 

“And she’ll continue to wait, _Dad_. I’m her favorite, the show does not go on without me. Let me have my moment with Jake, _jeez.”_ He elbowed Jake in the side when he laughed. “Alright. I’m sure I will, but if I don’t see you before we’re out there… Break a leg, I guess.” 

Benji nudged Jake in the side one more time, then headed for the door. 

“Hey, wait—” Jake called out. Benji turned around, raising an eyebrow as he looked at him. “Can you just make sure she’s okay? And that my mom’s not being too much? You can totally tell my mom I need her if she’s overwhelming Amy.” 

Benji smiled fondly. “I’ve got her, Jake. I promise you that Amy is not on the list of things you need to worry about today. I’m here.” 

They shared a knowing look. Jake’s cheeks hurt from smiling. He shook his head, trying and failing to wipe the smile off his face as he returned to his chair. “You know she’s always on my list.” 

“Now you know how I feel.” Benji raised an eyebrow at him, laughing quietly. “I’ve got her, Jake. We’ll see you in a little bit.” 

Jake smiled to himself, watching in the mirror as Charles walked up behind him. He gripped his shoulders, squeezing lightly. “It’s almost time, buddy.” Jake grinned, releasing a long, slow breath. It wasn’t close enough. Never close enough. 

Victor lingered in the doorway. “Hey, Jake?” Jake looked back up at him. “I was hoping maybe I could have a moment alone to talk with you?” 

Charles raised his eyebrows. “Oh—oh my god, of course. I’ll just go—check, I don’t know, make sure everything’s going alright out there.” 

He flashed Jake an encouraging look as he ran out of the room, leaving him alone with Victor. 

Victor stared at him for a moment, seemingly appraising him. He stepped further into the room, settling on sitting in the chair closest to Jake. “How are you doing?” 

Jake laughed quietly. “I, uh…” He breathed another laugh. “I don’t know. Excited, mostly. A little nervous, but…” He looked down at the floor for a moment, his eyes flickering back up to Victor’s face. “I can’t wait.” 

Victor smiled. “She can’t wait, either.” 

His eyes crinkled on the edges, and he looked so young. He reminded him of Eli when he smiled like that, and Jake’s own smile widened at the expression. 

“I just wanted to welcome you into the family, Jake.” He nodded, his hand clapping gently on the back of Jake’s arm. “Officially, I mean. My Amy loves you so much, and we all love the both of you just as much. I’m glad to have you in her life, and I know…” 

Victor trailed off, looking down at the floor. He took a deep breath, avoiding Jake’s eyes. “I know that your father isn’t always… _around.”_ He peeked up at Jake, his expression soft. “And I just wanted to let you know that I always will be. If you, ya’know… need me. I don’t want to overstep, but…” He faltered a bit, searching for the right words. “Just, I want you to know that you’re a part of this family, Jake. And you can call me if you need someone, the same way any of my sons can. Not that you _have to_ or anything. Don’t feel obligated to—”

“Mr. Santiago.” Jake stopped him, reaching out and placing his hand on his shoulder. This smile was much softer than the one he shared with Benji. “That really means a lot.” He nodded, choking back emotion as he continued. “And of _course_ I’ll be taking you up on that. I’m—” He paused, letting out a shaky breath through his smile. 

Victor leaned forward, pulling him into a hug. Jake accepted immediately, burying his face in his shoulder. They held each other for a moment, Victor’s hand squeezing Jake’s shoulder comfortingly. Jake pulled out of the hug with tears in his eyes, doing his best to wipe them away quickly. He sniffled. 

“I just think it’s kind of funny that you’d tell Benji not to make me cry and then you’d come in here and make me cry.” 

Victor laughed, his own eyes betraying him with a hint of unshed tears. “I didn’t want him to steal my moment.”

Jake laughed with him, wiping the last remnants of tears out of his eyes. “Thank you.” 

“Hey, uh…” Victor dipped his hand into his pocket. “You look just about perfect for the wedding, but…” He pulled his hand back out, revealing a watch in his hand. “I was thinking maybe this would complete the whole look. It’s kind of a family heirloom. It was my grandfather’s, and my father wore it at his wedding, then I wore it at mine. All the boys have worn it at their weddings so far, and I thought maybe you’d like to wear it, too.” 

He leaned forward, inspecting the watch as Victor held it out to him. “I’d love to.” He stretched his wrist out, rolling his sleeve back for Victor to help him put it on. Victor’s smile widened as he helped to buckle the watch on, then adjusted it, rolling his sleeve back so that everything was in its proper place. 

“It looks great.” Victor beamed. “Like it was meant to be there.” 

“Thank you, sir.” 

Victor tugged at the edges of Jake’s bowtie, adjusting it into place. “Well…” He squeezed his shoulder one more time. “That’s what dads are for.” 

In that moment, Jake remembered times in college when friends a few years older would invite him to bachelor parties, getting absolutely obliterated to seemingly cope with the choice they’d made. Friends from the academy complained about their longtime girlfriends and wives alike, further cementing in Jake’s young mind that marriage just wasn’t something he’d ever be interested in. If _that’s_ what marriage looked like… Why would he want that? He’d heard so much from friends about everything you lose when you get married. Freedom, free time, alone time. Things that Jake was never particularly concerned about in the first place, but things that he remembered sounding so threatening when his friends spoke about them. 

He never felt like he was losing any of that with Amy. 

He wondered, not for the first time, why nobody ever talked about all the things you _gain_ when you get married. He was gaining a wife. A future with the best person he knew. A whole family. And maybe everybody didn’t get that, but he had all that with Amy. There was no part of him that was mourning what was lost, or who wasn’t there, or the things that would be missing from his future. Everything in his life felt full because of her, and he couldn’t wait to see her. And _god,_ maybe if the people around him talked about marriage like this, he could’ve spent more of his time being excited about this part of his life. As it was, he’d just have to hold on to every moment he had. Perhaps it had taken him longer than he’d like to get excited about marriage, but he’d found Amy, and he’d found happiness. He’d found family, both with her and with his friends, and he’d found home. There was a time when his life felt like a million little jagged pieces all jumbled up in a cardboard box. He finally felt like all the pieces had fallen into place. He could see the big picture with her, and it was breathtaking and heartwarming all at once. 

“Jake!” Charles burst into the room, breathing heavy like he’d been sprinting to get there. “Jake! We have a—” He clapped his hand over his mouth when he realized what he’d just interrupted. Jake and Victor separated more, still smiling softly. “I’m so sorry.” 

“It’s fine.” Victor smiled at Jake, moving to stand up. “I should really get back to Amy one last time before the ceremony, anyway.” He grinned at Jake one final time. “But you’re gonna do great.” 

Jake and Charles watched as Victor left the room with one final pat on Jake’s shoulder. Charles turned to Jake. “That seemed like it went well.” 

“It went great. Better than I could’ve hoped for.” He thumbed at the leather band on the watch he was wearing. “What’s wrong?” 

“Oh, yeah. We have a problem.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> omg a problem?
> 
> not, like, a typical ruined wedding sitcom trope problem, right?
> 
> right????
> 
> (okay but what are we thinking about this chapter so far and are you excited for part two???)


	24. i think it's wherever we are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from State Champs' Safe Haven 
> 
> _They say we can find safe haven,_  
>  _But I think it's wherever we are._  
>  _You know I'll be patient,_  
>  _Despite our racing hearts._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> LMAOOOO SURPRISE 
> 
> in more ways than one! 
> 
> okay so first and foremost! this chapter is not in past tense???? because i haven't been writing in past tense these days and literally forgot how??? so probably the last few chapters here will be not past tense rip — maybe i'll edit it i'm not sure but if you're reading this chapter right after the last one i'm so sorry bc this probably looks weird af
> 
> NEXT UP,,,,, and we should've probably seen this coming,,,,, but after this chapter is posted there will, yet again, be two more chapters. yes, my dumbass has added another chapter AGAIN. no i am not okay. am i ever? 
> 
> BUT good news is that the next chapter IS finished! so that should be coming in a few days? the final chapter has not yet been finished but has been started. 
> 
> ALSO _some_ one convinced me that we deserve to see jake and amy consummate their marriage so there will also be more smut (in the next chapter) so! i'm sorry or you're welcome, whichever applies
> 
> and I think that's all the housekeeping stuff we have to get through here. Thank you SO much if you're reading this—I know I disappeared and y'all probably thought this story was abandoned but I've just been super busy (and, ofc, working on another story because i have no self control over ideas i'm excited about)
> 
> so thank you, thaaaank you if you made it through this and are reading this chapter and are existing, and i hope that you're all happy and healthy and doing well out there. ¨̮ 
> 
> enjoy!

“Kylie. _Kylie.”_ Amy bats Kylie’s hands away from her. “I love you so much, but if you touch my hair one more time, I might have Rosa break your hand.” 

“And I _will_ do it.” Rosa murmurs, bored. 

Gina laughs humorlessly. “And the cast will ruin every shot of me in my oldest friend’s wedding pictures, so then I’d have to have Rosa break your other hand.” 

“And I’d do that, too.” 

Kylie backs away. _“I’m sorry_ that I want everything to be perfect.” She reaches for Amy’s hands, leaning in and smiling. “You’re getting married today. And just think, if I hadn’t told you to leave my wedding a few years ago, who knows if you two would’ve ever gotten together?” 

Amy grins, leaning in toward Kylie and remembering the day. She had been a bundle of tightly wound nerves, which, to her credit, she thought she’d been doing a pretty good job at hiding. Every other thought she had was about Jake. How he hadn’t told her he was leaving. How mad she was at him. How her feelings for him were much deeper than she’d ever admitted to even herself at the time. How _he was leaving._ How it was her fault, how it was too late, how she couldn’t stop him even if she knew how. She likes to think that she and Jake would have found each other and resolved things one way or another—he _was_ on his way to the wedding when they bumped into each other on the subway, after all—but she wouldn’t deny that Kylie convincing her to leave the wedding was instrumental in the way that their story fell into place. 

“Please. I had a whole plan to shove these two dummies together. This was inevitable.” Gina slumps against Rosa on the sofa in the hotel room, lying her head in her lap and inspecting her manicure. 

Rosa groans, tugging gently at the chiffon. “You’re gonna wrinkle my dress. I already have to wear a dress and it’s _already_ dirty flower colored, it doesn’t need to be wrinkled, too.” 

“It’s _dusty rose,_ Rosa.” Gina scoffs, shoving away from Rosa with all the drama she can muster for someone who’s growing increasingly tired of being in a hotel room with Kylie _and_ Amy’s mom. “Don’t disrespect the color that I so kindly helped nudge Amy toward.” 

Amy rolls her eyes. “I think your exact words were ‘if you don’t choose dusty rose, I’m planting a bomb at your wedding.’”

“And is there a bomb?” Gina gestures at their dresses. “You’re welcome.” 

“Where’s my baby sister?!” A voice calls from the hallway. Everyone jumps as the echoing of a fist slamming against the door booms through the room. A fond smile creeps onto Amy’s lips. “Are y’all decent?! We’re coming in.” 

“Which one is that?” Karen peers over at Amy. “The one who likes basketball? Or the one who drives a hybrid?”

“We all like basketball, Mrs. Peralta,” Tony informs her as he steps into the room. Luke moves behind him, reaching for Karen’s hand and kissing the back of her palm. She lets out a delighted little _oh!_ , grinning and stepping back as six of Amy’s brothers file into the room. 

“And my car is not a hybrid,” Julian mutters sullenly, his head hanging for all of two seconds at the conversation that he’d had _way_ more times than he’d ever like to recount. He was likely seconds from explaining that his small car makes it much easier for him to find parking in the city, but it runs on gas, not _batteries or vegetable oil or whatever_ (to which David would reply _maybe if you cared about the environment like me, you’d get id of the car completely and invest in bicycle transportation_ , to which Camila would smile, ruffle his hair, and say _my sweet, conscientious boy_ —to which every other Santiago child would groan).

Instead, he catches sight of Amy. 

Julian pushes through the band of brothers, beelining straight for her. He stops in front of her, reaching for her hands and laughing breathlessly. He releases her hands, his hands coming to press against his chest. “Oh my god, Amy…” 

“Don’t cry, Jule.” The emotion is already peaking in her voice and he’s only been in front of her for two seconds. While she and Benji are the most in sync of her siblings, Julian can get her emotional at the drop of a hat on a normal day—and this is _not_ a normal day. “If you cry, I’m gonna cry, and my makeup is already finished.” 

“You look so beautiful.” He takes a shaky breath. “Do something, do a spin or something, I don’t—” They both laugh softly as she follows his directions, spinning slowly and showing off her dress. “It didn’t work, I’m still gonna cry.” 

“Get out of the way, _Julian.”_ Mateo bumps past him. “Let me see her.” 

“Let _you_ see her?” Tony pushes his arms between Mateo and Julian, making space for himself in front of Amy. “I’ve been her brother the longest. Let _me_ see her.”

“You’ve been her brother the longest?” Eli scoffs, coming around the other side of Amy and wrapping his arms loosely around her waist. She rolls her eyes, but leans her head against his when he props his chin up on her shoulder. “We both became her brothers at the same time, dummy.” 

“Need I remind you that me, you, Eli, and Benji all became her brothers the second she was born?” David interrupts, keeping just a bit more distance from the rest of the group—and maintaining that distance when both Eli and Tony glare at him. “Just saying, we all four have a leg up on the twins and Luke, but we’re all the same.” 

Tony pushes Eli’s forehead until he scoffs and lets go of Amy, then he pulls her into a hug. He carefully pats the top of her head, ignoring her laughter and talking over the top of her head. “Amy knows that I had to deal with being Eli’s brother longest, then _your_ brother longer than everybody but Eli, then Benji before I ever got a sister. I think all that added together puts me at an advantage, and I’m keeping the title of being her brother the longest.” 

“Boys!” Camila shakes her head, making her way through the group of her sons to pry Tony off of Amy. “Stop arguing and talk to your sister while she’s still a Santiago.” 

“She’s still gonna be a Santiago, Mom.” Julian makes a face at her. 

“Yeah, this isn’t, like, 1942 when you and Dad got married, Ma.” Mateo scoffs. He and Julian high-five, and Amy barely holds back a laugh as her mother rolls her eyes in exasperation. 

“I still think you should reconsider, Amelia.” 

“Jake and I decided _together_ that this is what we both want.” Amy offers her mother a tight smile. “Thank you for your input, though.” 

“Well, I, for one, think it’s nice.” Karen walks over, smoothing her hand over Amy’s bicep. “I think it’s a very cool move, sweetie. Very modern of you two.” 

“That’s exactly why Jake fell for her,” Gina cuts in. “Because she’s so modern and not at all because she has 1920’s seamstress vibes.” Rosa barely muffles a laugh, and Luke’s attention immediately shifts to the women on the sofa. 

“Well, hello. Which one of you lucky ladies do I get to walk down the aisle today?”

Gina makes a face at Amy. “Ew, Ames. I’m gonna step on your brother.” 

“Please do.” Luke raises an eyebrow at her, grinning. Both Rosa and Gina make sounds of disgust. 

“Luke.” Amy wrinkles her eyebrows at him. 

“Okay, okay,” he concedes, turning back toward her. “You look really pretty, Amy.” 

“So pretty,” Mateo agrees.

“Like, way prettier than I expected.” She glares at David, who laughs. “I’m joking. You’re beautiful.” He loops his arm around her waist. “Looking just like the most attractive Santiago brother.” 

“Did somebody say ‘most attractive Santiago brother’?” Benji steps into the room, his hand covering his eyes. “I’m here, I’m here.” 

“What are you doing, weirdo?” Eli asks. 

Benji steps further into the room, stumbling and bumping into Mateo, who groans. Julian reaches out to steady him. 

“Well, _Elijah,”_ Benji begins, his hand still pressed firmly over his eyes, “I’m covering my eyes so that I can get the perfect first impression of my baby sister in her wedding dress—”

Eli smacks Benji on the back of the head. “Stop calling me Elijah—”

 _“Hey!”_ Benji pulls his hand away from his face to glare at Eli, but the second his eyes are uncovered, he doesn’t care at all about his brothers. He slaps his hand on Eli’s chest, pushing him away gently so he can make his way to Amy, gasping and clutching at his chest. “Amy…” 

He stands a few inches away, shaking his head, then bringing both of his hands up to cover his mouth. She smiles at him. “What do you think?” 

“What do I think?!” He makes a soft, exasperated sound. She laughs softly when he shakes his head again. “I think you’re so pretty that Jake might actually die on the spot when he sees you, Amy. It’d make for a really shitty wedding, but a super interesting story for me to tell at dinner parties.” 

“Also, it’d make your ego go up at least, like, ten points,” Mateo offers. 

“Her ego _should_ go up ten points. It should go up more than that. Look at her!” Benji slaps Mateo’s arm repeatedly. “Look at her!”

“God, stop it,” Mateo complains. 

She’s about to tell him to stop hitting Mateo when her phone starts ringing from its place on the vanity. She turns and grabs it, a little surprised to see Jake’s name on the screen. She glares at her brothers, who are still arguing, until they quiet down, then she answers the phone. “Jake?” 

“Babe!” His voice is exactly two octaves higher than normal, and she physically feels her blood pressure spike at what she’s fairly certain is uneasiness in his voice. “Hey! How’s it… going?” 

“What’s wrong?” 

“God, jeez, Amy. Nothing’s—” He pauses to clear his throat when his voice is still obviously higher than normal. “Nothing’s wrong, Ames.” 

“Don’t tell her that,” she hears Charles murmur in the background.

 _“Jake.”_ She’s a little more stern this time. She feels everyone’s eyes on her, but she tries to ignore both them and the intrusive thoughts popping into her head about what could possibly be wrong. “What’s wrong?” 

He sighs quietly. “Look, it’s not a problem as much as it’s, like, an inconvenience. You really don’t have to worry about it. I have Charles on it!” 

“You have Charles on it,” she repeats incredulously. 

“Yeah! Yeah, I have Charles on it. He’s gonna—it’s gonna be fine, babe. Everything’s fine.” 

She takes a deep breath, shaking her head and brushing off her mother’s hand where she grabs her shoulder. “Right. You’re saying everything’s fine, but your voice is _not_ saying that. You promise?” 

“Yes, Ames. I’d tell you if it was something serious, I swear. I just didn’t want you to hear that something’s wrong somehow and stress out about it. It’s under control, and if you somehow hear about a problem, know that I’m already taking care of it.” 

“Charles. That _Charles_ is already taking care of it.”

Jake laughs softly. “Yes. Charles is taking care of it.” 

“Can I send Rosa to make sure—”

“Wait, why Rosa? If Rosa’s going, I’m going, too.” Gina’s already standing up and heading for the door. “Wait, what are we doing?” 

“I’m sure Charles would love to have Rosa _and_ Gina help out,” Jake supplies on the other line in response to Gina’s loud complaining. “Right, Boyle?” 

“Perfect. Tell them to meet me outside my hotel room,” Charles directs. 

Amy mouths _Boyle’s hotel room_ to them, then watches as they leave the room. 

“Okay, see? Everything’s handled. We’re on track for the perfect wedding.” She can hear the smile in Jake’s voice, and it brings a smile to her lips, too. “How are you feeling?” 

She breathes a laugh. “Good. Excited.” 

“Me too. So excited.” He sighs. “God, I can’t wait to tell people you’re my wife. And I’ll be your _husband.”_

She already has her mouth open to reply when she hears a rustling on the other end. There’s a soft knocking sound, then Charles’s voice is coming through quietly. “Uh, Jake? We have another problem…” 

“Jake? What’s going—”

There’s a little huffing sound on the line, like Jake released all of his breath at once. Like he’s shocked, or kind of like the sound Charles made when Rosa punched him in the stomach a few hours earlier. Amy’s voice goes up an octave. 

“Jake? Are you okay?” 

His voice is shaky, an almost hollow quality to it. He sounds like a completely different person than he had only seconds earlier. There’s a quiet rustling noise, then silence. “Yeah. I’m, uh… Yeah, everything’s fine, babe. I gotta go. I love you.” 

“I love you, but Jake—”

“Please don’t worry, Ames.” She can’t see his face, but she knows exactly how he would be looking at her if they were together. She takes the deep, steadying breath she knows he’s trying to encourage. “Relax for me. I’ll see you in a few hours, okay?” 

“Promise you’ll call me if anything’s really wrong?” 

There’s a beat of silence that makes her heart sink. “Mhm. Yeah, I promise. I really have to go.” He sounds far away again, and any anxiety she’d felt about the wedding prior to this moment is nothing compared to what she’s feeling with Jake sounding so empty facing whatever this unknown problem is. “Alright, I love you.” 

“I love you, too.” 

She holds up the phone to her ear for a few seconds after he’d hung up. She keeps her eyes on the floor, fully aware that when she turns around, she’s going to have all her brothers, both mothers, _and_ Kylie to face, looking for answers she doesn’t have to questions that are already plaguing her and stressing her out. 

Apparently she looks even more stressed than she feels, because when she turns around, she isn’t met with questions. She’s met with varying looks of shock and concern. Benji takes a few steps toward her.

“Okay, okay, okay. Hey, it’s okay.” He nods, his hands framing her shoulders, then turning toward the rest of their brothers. “Right? We’re definitely _not_ going to have a Santiago Panic Scale meltdown on your wedding day, okay? C’mon, you guys. Let’s move.”

The room erupts into movement in seconds. Kylie watches fondly as the Santiago brother take their places in various settings across the room, the familiar task of calming Amy down happening before their eyes. 

“What’s happening?” Katen asks quietly, leaning closer to Camila.

Camila grins, watching her sons going into action to help Amy. “When Amy gets really stressed about something and they’re all together, they do this. They’ve done it ever since they were kids. Except Luke, who I guess was born after they’d all started this, so he was never really included.”

“It’s like they all have a role to help distract her from whatever’s going on,” Kylie adds. 

“C’mere, c’mere,” Benji coaxes Amy closer, pulling gently on her wrists until he can push her back into the chair at the vanity. Tony takes his place behind her, immediately setting to work on rubbing her shoulders. 

She shoos him away. “You guys, you guys, I’m _fine.”_ She pushes away from Benji and stands up, eyes set on the door. “I’m just gonna go see Jake real quick.” 

“You are absolutely _not_ going to go see Jake real quick, Amelia.” Camila leaves her place next to Karen, marching over to wag her finger at Amy. “Traditions are traditions and he cannot see you before the ceremony. It’s bad luck.” 

“Mom, ow, come look at my arm!” Luke jumps up, taking his mother’s hand and pulling her into the bathroom with him. “I have this weird rash on the back of my arm and it’s starting to burn.” 

_“That’s_ Luke’s role,” Kylie murmurs to Karen. “Distracting Camila to avoid more stress.” 

“She’s right though, Amy.” David helps guide her back into the chair. Amy rolls her eyes. David—the calm voice of reason, even when she doesn’t want to hear it. Tony hesitantly moves back to trying to rub the tension out of her shoulders. “The ceremony is so close now. You can handle just a little while longer.” 

“Hey, you remember when we were kids?” Benji sidles up next to her, pulling a chair closer so he can sit next to her and take her hands. “You remember that dress-up wedding gown you had?” 

“The past,” Kylie informs Karen, pointing at Benji.

Amy tilts her head to the side, smiling despite herself. “Yes.” 

“And you always used to have a fake wedding where you’d get married to Al Gore.” 

She actually laughs at that. “I stand by my crush on Young Al Gore.” 

“Young Al Gore could totally get it.” Mateo wiggles his eyebrows, and all the siblings laugh. 

“Mateo’s the comedic relief.” 

“You were so cute, though.” Eli grins. “And exactly the same today as you were then, by the way. You were always so particular about your play wedding ceremonies.” 

Benji smacks Eli in the arm lightly. “Remember she’d make the little seating charts?” 

“And she’d set up all her stuffed animals in their seats and make Mom take pictures of her.” Eli’s grin widens when Amy shakes her head. “And look at you now.” He gestures to the mirror, and Amy follows his direction, smiling softly at her reflection. 

Kylie points at Eli. “The present.” 

Once she finally relaxes a bit, Tony stops rubbing her shoulders and kneels on the floor next to where Benji’s sitting. Julian slips his arm around her shoulder, pulling her into a half-hug. “And later, you’re gonna be marrying Jake.” 

“And the future,” Kylie finishes. Karen hums, watching with wonder as they all flawlessly talk Amy off of the cliff she was so comfortably clinging to. 

“And whatever’s going on, it isn’t going to change that you and Jake are getting married later, right?” Julian continues, leaning forward and encouraging her to nod with him. “He told you he’d call you if anything came up, and you trust him, right?” 

Amy nods slowly. “Yeah, of course I do. It’s not that I don’t trust him, it’s just that if he needs me—”

“Oh, honey.” Karen steps forward. “Jake is going to be okay in there, sweetie. I’m sure he’s just so excited to see you.” 

Amy shakes her head. “It was his voice. Something’s wrong.” 

“Here, why don’t I go check in on him, right?” Kylie offers. 

“Yeah! Or, here’s an idea,” Benji offers, “maybe Karen could go!” He raises his eyebrows at Karen, as if this is the best solution. 

“You’re right, I should probably go check in, just to be sure, huh?” 

“Karen!” Camila comes barreling out of the bathroom like she’d remembered the two turkeys fiasco from the previous Thanksgiving and is preparing for battle. Luke trails Camila out of the bathroom, panic in his eyes. 

“What’s going on?” Karen replies, her eyebrows raised. Normally, Amy would smile at the expression—the exact same expression she sees on Jake’s face all the time. Instead, her mother’s outburst has her anxiety spiking again. 

“There’s a problem with the—” Camila begins, her eyes widening as she watches Amy’s eyes begin to practically pop out of her head at the reveal of yet _another_ problem. Her voice quiets as she leans in closer to Karen. “With the caterers.” She glances nervously at Amy, then turns back to Karen. “I need you to help me handle this, please.” 

“I need to go see Jake,” Amy murmurs, attempting to stand up from her chair again, only to be settled back into it by brothers on either side of her.

“Do _not_ go see Jake,” Camila cautions, wagging her finger again. “Karen and I will be right back. Everything is just fine!” 

Amy grits her teeth, the little bit of relaxation she’d felt at her brothers’ efforts dissipating immediately.

“Listen, I’ll go check on Jake,” Kylie tries to soothe her. “You stay here, and I’ll go check in on him, and I promise you that if there’s anything really wrong, I will bring you to him myself. Okay?” 

Amy nods slowly. “Yeah. Okay. Thank you.” 

Kylie reaches between Benji and Julian to take Amy’s hand. “It’s gonna be okay, Amy. Breathe.” 

She nods, offering a fake smile as she exaggerates her next breath for Kylie’s sake. 

But all she wants is Jake. Jake, and to know that Jake is okay, and, less importantly, to solve all of the _(at least)_ three problems that had arisen so far. But if she can’t have all of those things, she could _at least_ be with Jake, and that’s the only thing on her mind. 

Kylie rushes out the door, murmuring out a _sorry!_ as she goes. Everyone turns to watch Victor entering the room with wide eyes. He looks around the room, curiously glancing at the empty space, then at all of his children all group up around Amy. “What’s going on in here?” 

Her brothers make space for her to move when their father comes in, allowing Amy to jump up and rush over to him. “Something’s wrong with Jake, Dad.” 

Victor quirks an eyebrow at her, but he takes her hands and faces her with a look of concern. “Something’s wrong with Jake? What happened?” 

“I don’t—” Her eyebrows pull together. “I don’t know. He called and said there was a problem, and then his voice sounded so _weird.”_ She shakes her head, her eyes darting to the door, fully aware that if she makes a break for it, Tony would probably just pick her up and run her back to the room like a football. She might be able to outrun him on a normal day, but between this dress and the accompanying heels, she doesn’t stand a chance.

Victor shakes his head. “Amy, no. I just left Jake’s room. He’s perfectly fine.” 

“See!” Julian offers from across the room. “Everything’s fine, Amy.” 

“No.” She shakes her head. “No, he called me, and I could tell in his voice. Something’s going on.” 

“Amy, I was just in there.” Victor nods at her, leading her back over to the vanity and helping her to sit in her chair. “He was a little emotional, but nothing was wrong. He’s excited to see you, sweetheart.” 

Amy turns her head, silently looking at her reflection. She knows Jake, and she knows that something’s wrong. She doesn’t care what anybody else says—she _knows._ Benji must have sensed that, because he’s squeezing her hands again. 

“Look, Amy.” He waits until she turns to look at him. “Hey. Jake is okay. Right?” He nods, but she doesn’t nod along with him. “Even if something’s wrong, he’s still okay. You guys are an hour from getting married. _One hours.”_ He raises his eyebrows. “Nothing’s going to mess that up.” 

“Yeah. You two will be together again before you know it, Ames.” Julian rubs his hand on her shoulder soothingly. “He’s okay.” 

“Yeah. And if he’s not,” Mateo adds, “then that’s just one less plate you guys will have to pay for at the reception.” 

Eight sets of dark eyes glare at Mateo. Tony thumps him in the back of the head. “Shut up, man. You’re not making things better.” 

“And that’s not even how that works,” Eli mumbles. 

“Look. I believe I have a certain speech to get through, don’t I?” Victor smiles. Amy smiles weakly at him. She laughs quietly when a few of her brothers groan. “Love is patient—”

“Love is kind,” Luke continues with a dramatic eye roll.

“It does not boast,” Mateo adds in an exaggerated, mocking voice. 

“Traditions’s tradition,” Victor warns. 

“Dad, c’mon.” Benji looks over at him with raised eyebrows. “I’ve never seen anybody look at _anything_ the way that Jake looks at Amy. She doesn’t need the love is patient speech.” 

She stands up again, all of her brothers eyeing her curiously. “Just anxious,” she murmurs, stepping away from them. “Need a little space.” 

“She _does_ need the love is patient speech,” Victor continues. “It’s a reminder. That even in the—”

“Hardest of times,” Luke fills in, smirking and elbowing at Julian. 

Eli rolls his eyes. “That even in the hardest of times, you still have each other, and when these qualities seem far away, you have to put in the extra work to make the relationship work.” 

“It’s almost like you’ve heard this before.” Victor laughs softly. 

David catches Amy’s eye from his place across the room. He holds her eye contact for a moment. He raises his eyebrows, then she watches as his eyes flicker to the door. He looks back at her for a moment, leaning his head in slightly, as if he’s asking if she understands. Then he turns to Eli. 

“Can you just shut up and let Dad talk?” He scoffs. 

“Oh, here we go, the Gold Child butts in to make sure he stays the favorite.” Eli makes a face at David. 

“Maybe if you ever did anything to be proud over, you’d know the feeling,” David shoots back. 

_“David,”_ Victor warns. 

“Are you fucking kidding me, David? Are you really gonna start this shit on Amy’s wedding day?” Benji’s fuming, angry eyes set on his brother. 

Julian’s just a step behind Benji. “Yeah, what the fuck, man? Do you really have to make everything about you?”

“I’m having war flashbacks to the family reunion of 2015,” Luke murmurs, watching excitedly as his brothers loom closer to one another. 

“I can’t help it if I’m the most interesting Santiago sibling.” David shrugs. 

Mateo shoves him in the chest. “You’re always doing shit like this, dude. It’s not cool.” 

“Hey, don’t push your brother.” Victor takes a step closer to them. 

David shoves Mateo back, bumping him into Eli. Eli shoves David, who bumps into Benji, who wags his finger between Eli and David. “Stop shoving. Nobody’s gonna have a black at Amy’s wedding.” 

“Don’t you guys think Amy has enough to be stressed about without you making it worse?” Julian adds. 

_“Don’t you guys think Amy has enough to be stressed about without you making it worse?_ David mimics. “Benji and Julian, Amy’s little minions. 

“You’d understand if any of your siblings actually _liked you,”_ Julian hisses back. 

Victor’s voice gets a little louder. _“Julian!”_

David lurches forward, getting in Julian’s face. Tony reaches around David’s shoulders and picks him up, turning in another direction so that he and David were no longer face-to-face. Victor gets in between Tony’s back and Julian. 

“Will all of you just _stop it?_ What is wrong with you?”

“What is going on in here?” All of the men whip around to face the door, eyes wide at Camila’s voice. 

Karen looks around, amused at the chaos before her. Her expression falters for a moment. “Where’s Amy?” 

Benji looks around, his face spreading into a slow smile as he realizes what had just happened. David rolls his eyes at him. 

“Well?” Camila asks. 

Victor shrugs. “I, uh… She was just here.” 

Camila rolls her eyes. “A bunch of men in here fighting like toddlers and nobody knows where the bride went?” 

“Love is patient, love is kind,” Luke begins in a sing-song voice.

 _“Lucas,”_ both Camila and Victor hiss. Karen snickers quietly. 

—

“Please don’t worry, Ames.” He can’t see her face, but he knows the exact expression she’s wearing. He can practically see her biting her lip, the tension between her eyebrows. He listens for her familiar exhale as she tries to let him soothe her. “Relax for me. I’ll see you in a few hours, okay?”

“Promise you’ll call me if anything’s really wrong?” 

He’s quiet for a moment. He doesn’t want to stress her out more—but he supposes if something was _really_ wrong, he’d make the exception. “Mhm. Yeah, I promise. I really have to go.” He pauses again, his eyes staring a hole into the table in front of him. “Alright, I love you.” 

“I love you, too,” she murmurs back. 

And it’ll be okay. It’ll definitely be okay. Everything will be okay. He holds the phone up to his ear for a few seconds after he ends the call. He needs those few extra seconds, needs to hold onto the sound of her voice for a few extra moments. 

“What are you doing here?” 

He doesn’t look up as he asks the question. There’s a shaky breath. “Jake, I know—”

He holds up his hand. “No. All I asked is what you’re doing here. That’s it.” 

There’s another quiet exhale. Jake finally looks up at his father. Roger smiles weakly at him. “What, a man can’t show up to see his son off on his wedding day?” Jake doesn’t smile. Roger falters. He takes another deep breath. “Okay, okay. Uh, your girlfr—sorry, fiancée—she came to see me.” 

Jake’s eyebrows draw together. “I— _Amy_ came to see you?” 

Roger nods slowly. “Yeah. I gotta say, Jake. I think you picked a good one.” 

Jake shakes his head, pushing back his annoyance at the unsolicited opinion—though he’s right. “When… when did Amy come to see you?” 

Roger pulls the other chair in the room a little closer and sits down. “Probably about two months ago?” 

He shakes his head again, blinking slowly. “Why?” 

“Uh, basically to tell me that you deserve way better than me, but since I’m the dad you got, it would be nice if I acted like it and showed up for you for once.” He laughs. “She’s feisty.” 

Jake narrows his eyes, but doesn’t push it. He isn’t sure where Amy got his father’s address, or when she would have gone to see him, or why she hadn’t mentioned it. He isn’t sure if he feels better or worse about his father being here. All he’s sure of is Amy. Amy, and how far out of her way she’d gone to make sure this day would be special for him, and how much he wishes he was holding her hand in this moment.

“Well,” Jake says softly, “thanks for coming.” 

There’s a moment of tense silence. Roger clears his throat, but Jake doesn’t look up at him. 

“She’s right,” Roger murmurs. Jake raises an eyebrow, finally meeting his gaze. “About me.” He shrugs. “You deserved a better dad than I ever was. But, uh…” He looks down at his lap, fiddling with his sleeve. “She said a lot of things that really made me think—about the choices I’ve made, and about our relationship, ya’know, what it is and what it should have been…” He presses his lips together, then shrugs again. “I know I don’t deserve a chance to make things right. But I was hoping, if you were up for it, that maybe I could try.” 

“What’d she say to you?” 

“What?” 

“Amy.” Jake raises his eyebrows. “What did she say to you?” 

“Right,” Roger murmurs. “Well, what _didn’t_ she say?” He laughs softly. “She told me all about you. About how proud she is of you, and how proud I should be, too—not that I deserved to be. She told me about how you don’t need me, and how you would get through this day perfectly fine without me, but she knew that deep down, you wanted me here. She said you’re a great person, and even though I didn’t have a part in making you that great person, that doesn’t mean I can’t be a part of your life now. That she didn’t know me, but being a shitty person is a choice, so it’s something I can change if I want to.” 

There’s a short bout of silence. Jake clenches his jaw. He’s just over an hour away from seeing Amy. He can last another hour. 

“And she said that when it comes to someone like you… That you’re worth making a change for.” 

The little bit of emotion that was creeping up Jake’s spine is suddenly assaulting him. He doesn’t want to cry in front of his dad, but his eyes are welling up with tears that he can’t stop. Not because of Roger—for once, not because of Roger—because of Amy. Amy, and how much she cares about him. Amy, and how proud and excited he is to share his life with her. Amy, and all the love he shares with her—the most amazing person he knows. 

“Hey, no, kid—why are you crying?” Roger scooches his chair a little closer. “Are you having second thoughts? I know how to sneak out of a wedding, if you need some help. I’ve got your—”

“What?” Jake’s voice cracks with emotion. He laughs quietly, shaking his head. “No. No, it’s not—” He laughs again, wiping at his eyes. “It’s not that.” 

“It’s her?” 

Jake looks at his dad, a smile that only Amy could put on his face hurting his cheeks. “It’s always her.” 

Roger shakes his head, his own smile stretching across his face. “Look, uh… Jake, I know I don’t have, like, a right to say this to you—Amy made sure I knew that—but, uhm…” He shrugs his shoulders again. “You’ve always been there every time I’ve called you out of the blue with a legal problem. And you’ve always been there for your mother, even when you were just a kid. You’ve got a way with people that I wish I could say came from me, but I think most of what I gave you was a love for Die Hard.”

“And Sal’s Pizza,” Jake adds softly, ignoring his urge to add _and a lifetime of abandonment issues._

“And Sal’s Pizza—and the Mets, for that matter.” Roger chuckles, then takes a moment to collect his thoughts. “Jake, ya’know… I know that I wasn’t around as much as I should have been. Especially since you’ve gotten older. But I know that I’ve never seen your face light up like it does when you’re talking about that girl. And I’ve never seen anybody talk so kindly about another person while also being _so_ threatening as she was the day she came to talk to me.” 

Jake laughs. “She’s amazing, right?”

Roger reaches out and grabs Jake’s shoulder. “You did good, Jake. And you’re gonna keep doing good because _you’re_ good. Better than I ever was.” He squeezes his shoulder, smiling at him. “And whether I deserve to be or not… I’m proud of you.” 

Jake laughs tearfully, nodding when Roger pats him on the back. “Thanks, Dad.” They both sniffle and laugh, taking a moment to pull themselves together. Jake clears his throat. “I mean, this doesn’t, like… fix everything. But I’m glad you’re here. And I hope you’ll keep being here.” 

“Me too.” 

It’s such a Roger response. Not an _I will be,_ but an _I hope so, too._ All Jake can do is laugh. He does hope that he’ll stick around this time. He’s sure he’ll be disappointed if he doesn’t. But he knows that it doesn’t matter. 

Because in less than an hour, he’s marrying his best friend. 

In less than an hour, he will be Amy Santiago’s husband. 

In less than an hour, everything will be right in his world. 

Everything is already right in his world. It has been since the day he’d bumped into her at CopCon. While they’d had some pretty low moments between that chance and counter and now, he’s undeniably happier for every second that she’s been in his life. 

And he wants nothing more than to see her. 

Not in forty-five minutes. 

Not at the end of the aisle. 

_Now._

It’s with this in his mind that he says goodbye to his father, double checking that he’d see him at the reception. It’s with this in his mind that he checks himself in the mirror one last time. It’s with this in his mind that he leaves his hotel room, because he knows he isn’t going to be able to get Amy away from their mothers, so he’s just going to have to walk into the room with all of them. 

And it’s with this in his mind that he anxiously taps the elevator button, waiting with his heart in his throat because all he wants is to have her in his arms, to thank her for being her, to look in her eyes and assure her that everything’s fine—because he knows she was anxious enough _before_ she heard his reaction to his dad walking into the room, and he’d barely given her a real response when that happened—and then he’d abandoned her with both of their mothers, so she’s probably about to explode, if she hadn’t already. 

He taps at the button a few more times. “Come on, you stupid—”

 _Ding._

The elevator doors open, and Jake’s entire world stops turning. 

“Ames…”

Amy Santiago is standing in the elevator, the pretty white dress he’d been dreaming about seeing her in perfectly complementing her skin even in the dull elevator light. They mirror each other, stuck in place, sucking in sharp breaths at the sight of one another, then immediately dissolving into breathless laughter and bigger smiles than they’d probably even worn in their lives. The elevator doors begin to close again, and both of them surge forward, connecting in the middle of the doors. Jake walks her backwards into the elevator again, burying his face in her neck and hugging her close to him. 

“Are you okay?” She whispers, her fingers tugging through the short hair at the nape of his neck in an attempt to keep him close.

He nods, trying his hardest to keep his tears at bay once more. He pulls back to look at her, grinning when her thumb comes up to sweep a tear away from his cheek. Her eyes glisten right back at him. 

“How did you get away from everyone?” 

She laughs softly. “You’ll never believe this… but David helped me escape.”

Jake raises his eyebrows. “Okay, I definitely want to hear more about that, but first—you went and saw my dad?” 

Amy’s lips part immediately, as if she’d completely forgotten that she’d even done that. “Oh my god—is he here?” 

“Yeah—”

“Oh my god,” she begins again. Both of her hands move to frame his face, her thumbs gently sweeping across his cheeks. “I mean, when I talked to him, I meant he should reconnect with you _before_ the wedding, not show up abruptly the day of. Are you okay?” 

“Yeah—yes. I’m great, Ames.” He pulls one of her hands away from his face, pulling it down and lacing his fingers with hers. “I’m great, and you’re amazing.” He shakes his head, a shaky, tearful breath escaping him. 

“Title of our sex tape,” she murmurs through a smile. 

He grins at her, shaking his head and trying to hold back the fresh round of tears doing its best to make itself known. “I don’t know what I ever did to deserve you.” 

“Hey, Jake…” She tugs her hand out of his, pulling it back to the other side of his face. She holds his face gently, shaking her head at him until he meets her eye contact again. “You’re _you._ That’s all it takes.” 

He presses his lips to hers, laughing breathlessly once again as he pulls back. “God, I love you. You look beautiful, Ames.” 

“I love you,” she whispers back, her hand finding its way to the back of his neck as they lean their foreheads together. “Our families are going to kill us.”

“Guess we’ll have to run off and elope.” 

“I heard the Nakatomi Plaza building does events. It’s short notice, but we might be able to get in there.” 

He pulls back, his eyes soft and serious on hers. “You’re my dream girl.” 

She laughs quietly, leaning back into him, grinning against his neck when he wraps his arms around her. They’re still all wrapped up in each other when the elevator dings again.

 _“What_ are you _doing?!”_ Charles squeals from outside the elevator. Jake and Amy don’t split apart, but they do turn to look at him. “Don’t you know it’s bad luck to see her in her dress before the ceremony, Jake? What are you _doing?!”_ He looks like he’s holding his breath, then his voice comes out _much_ higher, spoken through his teeth, words all rushed together. “Youguyslooksogoodohmy _god!”_

“Did we miss it?” An unfamiliar voice asks. 

Amy spins a little further, turning slightly out of Jake’s arms. The doors begin to close, so Jake steps out of the elevator, pulling Amy into the hallway with him. She scrunches her eyebrows in that cute, confused way she always does at the three unfamiliar men, then turns back to Jake, eyebrows raised. 

He bites his lip through his smile. “The, uh, problem. From earlier. The band we were using wasn’t able to make it because they had an out-of-state event yesterday and their flight got delayed.” He shrugs, looking at the three men standing there. 

“So they…?” Amy trails off, her voice betraying her confusion. 

“You don’t remember us?” The closest man asks. He grins, shrugging one shoulder. “Maybe this will jog your memory.” He clears his throat. 

_“Wise men say only fools rush in.”_

The man wiggles his eyebrows at Amy and tips his head toward Jake, just like he had a few years earlier, on a subway platform in Manhattan. 

_“But he can’t help falling in love with you.”_

Amy turns back to Jake, her eyes wide, brimming with both tears and love. “From the subway?” 

“I gotta say,” the man begins again, “you look even more beautiful in the wedding dress than you did in the dress you were wearing that day. Congratulations.” 

She takes a shaky breath. “How did you…?”

“I just hoped they’d be on the same platform.” Jake wipes a tear from under her eyes with his thumb, taking care not to smudge her makeup. “It was good luck, Ames. I keep telling you.” 

“Great luck, really,” the man corrects. “Our permit for the platform actually expires next week. We weren’t planning on renewing, so if this wedding was one week later…” He grins, shrugging one shoulder. 

Amy wraps her arms around Jake’s neck, knocking him back a few steps with the force of her hug. He winds his arms around her waist, dipping his head in, whispering in her ear. “I love you so much.” 

“I love _you_ so much,” she murmurs against his chest. 

“I love _this_ so much!” Charles squeaks. “But if you don’t still cry when she comes down the aisle, I’ll never forgive you.” 

Amy rolls her eyes, smiling at Charles. “Where are Rosa and Gina?” 

“Oh, they went to go assure you that everything was under control, but, ya’know… you’re here.” 

“Well, there goes your possible alibi,” Jake murmurs, pressing a kiss to her forehead. 

“I don’t care.” She shrugs, her eyes on him. “I’m glad I got to see you. It’ll be worth whatever my mom has to say about it.” 

“Will it be worth whatever Kylie has to say about it?” 

They all turn to find Rosa at the end of the hallway with her arms crossed. Gina stands behind her, a hand on her hip. 

“No,” Kylie shoots back from the other end of the hallway. Everyone turns to face her. “Jake wasn’t in his room,” she informs Amy, narrowing her eyes at Jake, who still has his arm around Amy’s waist. “I’ve spent all this time _looking for him.”_

“Look, I don’t really care what anyone has to say,” Gina begins, walking around Rosa and toward the group. “You both look amazing, and that’s all that really matters.”

“No, they’re both so _in love_ , and _that’s_ all that matters,” Charles interrupts. 

“You guys are finally getting married!” Kylie squeals, running over and taking one of each of their hands. She squeezes their hands, and both of them smile at her. She leans in a little closer. “And you know what _that_ means…” She winks, and Jake and Amy exchange a glance, eyebrows raised. 

“C’mon, Kylie,” Amy pulls her hand away. “We don’t have to talk about that right now.” 

“But aren’t you so excited?” She lets go of Jake’s hand, then turns to face him more fully, eyebrows raised. “Jake? I know you are.” 

Jake nods, holding back his laughter when Kylie turns her head back toward Amy to harass her. Rosa glares at Jake behind Kylie’s shoulder.

“It’s dope that you two are finally doing this, though,” Rosa adds. 

_“Amelia!_

“Mom, c’mon, leave her alone,” Benji urges, trailing behind their mother as she marches down the hallway. Everyone takes a step back from Amy except Jake, who replaces his hand around her waist. “God, you two look so fucking _good_ together,” Benji grins, ignoring his mother’s dirty look at his language.

“Don’t they?!” Charles shouts. Rosa pulls on his arm. 

“We’re gonna help the musicians get set up. We’ll meet you guys back there?” 

“See you there,” Jake waves.

“Twenty minutes,” Amy adds. 

“Fifteen,” Camila corrects. 

“Kylie, c’mon,” Rosa mutters. She, Kylie, Gina, and Charles turn down the hallway to lead the musicians to the ballroom. 

Camila crosses her arms, glaring at Amy. 

“Mom, c’mon.” Amy rolls her eyes. “You’re not even superstitious. You don’t really believe that it’s bad luck for us to see each other before the ceremony.”

“No, but capturing the surprise of it all when you see each other for the first time is part of the wedding experience, Amy. I thought it would be nice to share that with my only daughter.”

“Mom, come _on,”_ Benji interrupts. “She’s going to be just as excited to walk down the aisle now as she would’ve been if they hadn’t seen each other.” 

“And look how _happy they are!”_ Karen whispers from where she’d just turned around the corner, her hand pressed to her chest as she admires them. “Oh, you look so grown up, sweetie.” 

Jake smiles at his mom, letting go of Amy long enough to give Karen a quick hug. 

“They are happy,” Camila continues. “But if the curse _is_ real and your marriage is doomed, I’ll be saying I told you so.” 

“Look, Mrs. Santiago,” Jake begins, squeezing Amy’s hand gently when her eyebrows furrow at her mother, “I really appreciate that you’re concerned for the future of our marriage, but I have to be honest here. The only thing that could keep me away from Amy… is Amy. Our future won’t be decided by some tradition, or curse, or whatever. And even if it is, even if we’re doomed to seven years of bad luck or something, seven years of bad luck with Amy by my side is still better luck than most people have.” 

“I raised a sweet man,” Karen murmurs, her lips pressed into a soft smile. 

“The sweetest,” Amy agrees, her eyes locked on Jake’s. 

“Fifteen minutes!” Camila repeats frantically. “Can we get you back into your room and into your actual shoes before the ceremony starts, please?” 

Amy rolls her eyes, but her smile doesn’t fade. “I love you. I’ll see you soon.” 

“Love you,” he murmurs back. She slips out of his arms, but her eyes stay on him as she takes a few steps away. “See you soon.” He holds his hand out toward her, backing away in the opposite direction. She grins, mirroring his movements, both of them curving their pinkies in a silent pinky promise. “Can’t wait,” he whispers. 

He watches her shake her head, her smile not faltering in the least as she disappears around the corner. Benji shakes his head, laughing quietly as he follows. And that’s how Jake ends up in his hotel room all by himself, ten minutes until he has to make his way to the altar for what would be one of the most important moments in his life. 

He stares in the mirror, not an ounce of anxiety affecting him. He’s never been more sure of anything that he is of what he’s about to do. Still, the abrupt knock on the door has him practically jumping out of his skin. 

“You still in there, or did you make a break for it?” Rosa calls from outside the door. 

He scoffs loudly, rolling his eyes at her as he opens it up. “You know me. Figured I’d wait until the very last second before running. Can’t help the procrastination.” 

She shoves his shoulder, cracking a smile. “Amy sent me to make sure you’re still doing okay. She’s losing it.” 

“Yeah. She’s crazy.” He grins. “I love her so much.” 

Rosa rolls her eyes. “You know, I always thought you two would be less annoying when you got together, but you’re just sickeningly cute, which might be even worse.” 

“Calling Nancy Meyers now. We’re her next movie.” 

“They’re films, Jake,” she corrects quickly, not a hint of humor on her face. 

He chuckles quietly, turning back to look in the mirror and adjust his bowtie a final time. “Hey, Diaz?” He watches as her reflection looks up at him, then he turns around to meet her gaze. “Thank you.” 

She raises an eyebrow. “For what?” 

“Ya’know.” He shrugs. “Just… everything. For being here for both of us, and being such a good friend through everything. Especially before we were together.” He shrugs again. “I don’t know if we would have ever gotten to this point if it hadn’t been for you.” Rosa blinks at him, but doesn’t say anything. “And I’m just really grateful for you. In my life and in Amy’s.” A third, and final shrug rolls off of his shoulders. “I love you.” 

Rosa blinks slowly, her voice coming out a little hoarse as she responds. She clears her throat to try and dispel some of the emotion. “I only did it because you guys were so annoying, you know.” 

Jake laughs, turning back to face the mirror to give her a little space. “I know.” 

“I love you, too,” she mutters. “Both of you.” 

He grins, pretending not to notice as he watches her reflection wipe a tear away. 

“We should probably head out there,” she points out. 

Jake turns to look at her again, his eyes crinkling at the edges. “That’s the real reason she sent you, isn’t it? To make sure I’m not late?” 

Rosa raises her eyebrows. “Something about ‘if his punctuality at work is any indicator, I’ll probably be at the end of the aisle before he’s there.’” They both laugh quietly. “You ready?” 

Jake smiles. “I’ve never been more ready for anything in my life.” 

—

There are a lot of times in Jake Peralta’s life when things didn’t make sense. His seventh grade algebra class, or Gina making him choose between two identical shades of nail polish, or how anybody could possibly like the Vulture, for example. 

Standing at the end of the aisle with Amy walking toward him? That makes more sense than John McClane saving Nakatomi Plaza. 

Much to Charles’s delight, Jake _does_ cry again.

He’s barely paid any attention to the group of their family and friends watching them, because he hasn’t taken his eyes off of her for more than a few seconds. Her eyes remain on him, sparkling with emotion, and he just feels so _full._ He glances at Holt. 

“I believe you’ve written your own vows?” 

“Yes,” Jake replies, his smile stretching wider at Amy. He takes a deep, slow breath, allowing her attention to calm his nerves. He wants to get this _perfect._ “There was a time when I thought there was no way that I would ever marry you.” He turns to Holt more fully, laughing softly. “Actually, I think I once swore to you that nothing would ever happen between me and Amy—”

Holt interrupts, his own reminiscent smile in place. “Now, or in the future, I believe you said.” 

“And at the time, I really believed that.” He looks down, grinning up at her when her thumb swipes across his knuckles comfortingly. “Since that day, I have spent so many days thinking about how badly I wanted this day to happen.” He takes another deep breath, his eyes soft on hers. She smiles encouragingly at her. “Amy Santiago, you are the person I want to share every problem with. I want to experience every happy moment with you. There is no one in the universe I would rather have by my side.” 

“Even John McClane?” She asks softly. 

“C’mon, Ames.” He shakes his head, as if she’s making him choose between two really difficult choices. He laughs quietly. “It’s you. Every time.” 

They both smile, breathing quiet laughter. 

“This day…” He trails off. “It didn’t quite go how I expected. But Ames, the messiest days become the best memories—and I can’t wait to make a lifetime of messy memories with you. I love you.” 

“I love you,” she whispers back to him. She smiles down at the floor, then her eyes flicker back up to him. “You know, uhm, I thought that I knew what love was. Love is,” she pauses, glancing over at her father with a sly smile, “patient, and kind. Love is an equation. You add two people, their personalities and behaviors, feelings, all the little idiosyncrasies, and love is the outcome. I thought it was all that simple.” 

She pauses for a moment, shaking her head and smiling at him. “And then I met you.” He mirrors her soft smile. “Love is… breathless. Love is wild, and it’s messy, and it’s scary. There was a time when I thought the risk outweighed the benefit… and I have never been more proud to be wrong. Because every day with you, Jake Peralta, has been worth that risk. When nothing else in my life feels right, you do.” 

“Title of your sex tape,” he whispers emotionally, his eyes locked on hers. 

“You’re welcome for throwing that in there.” She grins at him. He shakes his head, smiling tearfully at her. She takes a deep, steadying breath. “I always thought I wanted predictability and routine, when it came to love. You’ve shown me that consistency can still live in spontaneity. Being with you has taught me that even though I don’t always know what tomorrow, or next month, or next year will bring, I can welcome that unknown. And it doesn’t scare me anymore, because I know that no matter what happens, you’ll be right here with me. I love you so much, Jake.” 

_I love you,_ he mouths. 

He manages to keep his happy tears at bay when he slips her ring onto her finger, and his face hurts from how wide his smile stretches when he hears Holt say _you're married_.

And of all the many kisses he’s shared with Amy—the soft, and sweet, and slow, and rough, and everything in between—he’s certain that this one is his favorite.


	25. i've wandered to just the right spot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> title from Mayday Parade's Piece of Your Heart
> 
> _You are the brightest I've seen,_  
>  _You are the best part of me,_  
>  _And just for when we're apart,_  
>  _I've got a piece of your heart._
> 
> _But I want the whole damn thing._  
>  _I feel it inside of me, feel it inside of you, too._
> 
> [...]
> 
> _I don't know, I just can feel it in the atmosphere,_  
>  _If I'm wandering, I've wandered into just the right spot._  
>  _You are the fire in my sleep,_  
>  _You are the reason I dream._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay i know i've said this before...
> 
> but i think this is actually the final smut for the fic, and i think there actually is only one chapter left now. 
> 
> ¨̮

Jake Peralta is _exhausted._

Actually, he’s feeling many things. 

He’s grateful, and he’s in love, and he’s, admittedly, a little tipsy. He’d be lying if he said he wasn’t thinking about how badly he wants to be between Amy’s thighs, but he’d also be lying if he said that was the _only_ thing on his mind. 

They stumble into their hotel room—their _new_ hotel room, because Jake had insisted that the occasion called for a separate room to, ya’know, signify their union (Amy argued that it didn’t make sense to pay for a third room when she already thought it was silly to pay for two, but he was _adamant)_ —together, deliriously happy after spending their evening celebrating with their family and friends. He kicks off his shoes when he steps into the room, and while consummating his marriage is definitely at the top of his priority list, he’s also sizing up their bed, eyeing the pillow and thinking about how great it’ll feel to finally close his eyes. How great it’ll feel to close his eyes with his wife in his arms. How great it’ll feel to close his eyes with his wife in his arms, their naked bodies pressed close together. The thought propels him to her. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he whispers against the back of her neck. She hums softly when he presses his lips to the nape of her neck. His fingers grip at her hips, pulling her against him, tracing across the lace he finds there. He trails his kisses down, his fingers sweeping up her body, curving around her shoulders as his lips move further down her spine. His fingers smooth over her shoulder blades, inching down until he’s gently gripping her zipper. He licks a stripe up the side of her neck, finding that sensitive spot with ease and giving a bit of attention to it. He nips his way across her skin, grinning at the little anticipatory hum that escapes his wife as the sound of her zipper cuts into the silence in the room. 

_His wife._

His fingers creep underneath the fabric once the zipper is tugged down, and he flat out groans when he feels a thinner layer of lace pulled taut against her hips. She twists in his arms at the sound he makes, her dress slipping further down her body with the motion. By the time she’s fully facing him, the dress is bunched up at her feet, revealing a white, lacy lingerie set that he’s never seen before. 

“Wow,” he whispers. He swallows, his head shaking slightly as his eyes cling to every centimeter of her body. His breath is shallow and uneven. “Fuck, Ames, wow.” 

She responds by stretching up on her toes to kiss him again, her arms winding around his neck. He lets her guide him backwards, a little groan interrupting their kiss when he collides with the wall. Her fingers tug his already untied bowtie out of place as she shifts against him, wasting no time in following that up with working her way through the buttons on his shirt. He doesn’t even have his shirt off of his shoulders yet when she starts unbuckling his belt, and then she’s slipping her hand into his pants and gripping him through his boxers, leaving him moaning against her lips, reaching down to grab her wrist. 

He uses his grip on her wrist to push her back slightly, swallowing again when their lips finally separate. They stare at one another, both trying to catch their breath and awaiting the next move. 

“What has you moving so fast?” He whispers.

She steps forward, her lips brushing against his. His eyes flutter shut, his hand slipping off of her wrist in favor of grabbing her hip. “I’ve wanted you all day.” 

He’s hit with a wave of desire. He feels the same way, no stranger to being hit with pang after pang of desire for her throughout the night—when she was smiling over at him at their table, when she was dancing like a dork with her brothers, when she was licking frosting off of her lips. He chuckles, pausing to award her a quick kiss. “Didn’t get enough of me last night?” 

She shakes her head, pushing closer to him, her fingers weaving into his hair as she deepens the kiss. She tugs his head back. His breath escapes him in a little huff when her lips move to his neck. Her voice is low, and it makes his stomach flip. He was teasing her, but there’s nothing teasing about her tone, words murmured close to his skin. “Never have enough of you.” 

Her fingers slowly slip back into his pants, rubbing and grasping and stroking. He reaches for her wrist again, practically whimpering as he gently tugs her hand away. He twists and pulls until she turns around, then he pulls her back against him. She wastes no time in grinding against him, which leaves him leaning his head against the back of her neck, pulling her closer with both hands on her hips. 

“Ames,” he whispers, shaking his head. He holds her closer for a moment, rutting closer and sighing, but then he pulls himself together. He shakes his head again, then pushes her hips away until she’s no longer touching him. “Slow down, babe.” He nuzzles his face against her neck, ghosting a few kisses across her skin. “I wanna take my time with you tonight.” 

She hums, leaning back against him, tipping her head to the side so his lips can move back to her neck. His hands slowly trail up her sides, fingers skimming over her breasts, then abandoning them to find their way into her hair. He continues pressing soft, warm kisses along her jaw as he tugs at the first bobby pin. 

Amy hums a quiet laugh when she realizes what he’s doing. She turns in his arms, her eyes soft and adoring on his. “It’s been a while since you’ve done this.” 

He grins, his eyes leaving her face long enough to adjust the curl he’d just unpinned. She pulls at his pants, watching as they fall to the floor, then tracing her fingertips from his hips, down to his thighs and back. He hums contentedly. 

“A little different this time,” he whispers. He nestles his nose closer to hers, pressing his lips to hers gently. “Less wet.” 

“Speak for yourself,” she whispers.

He laughs softly. “I love you.” He catches her in another kiss before she can respond. Her fingers trail up along his chest. He takes a shaky breath, and his voice is somehow soft and commanding all at once. “Now turn around, Ames.” 

She sighs at the quality of his voice, but wastes no time in following his directions. There are far less bobby pins in her hair now than there were the last time he did this. He wants to keep that same tension between them, so he slows down the pace a step further. For each pin he slips out of her hair, he trails slow kisses across a different spot on her. Her neck, her shoulder, her shoulder blades, her back, her earlobe. She hums and sighs, grinding closer to him every time his teeth scrape against her skin. 

He’s almost certain she was counting each pin as he pulled them out, because the second he frees her last curl, she’s twisting in his arms again. He can see the self-restraint in her eyes, can feel her holding back from what she wants to do. Amy’s trying to keep it slow for him, but she so clearly needs more. Her lips brush against his, waiting for him to set the pace, for him to make the move. 

He pulls back, his eyes flickering across her body. She’s never worn lingerie quite like this for him. It has one of those belts around her waist with the delicate straps that lead down to her thighs. Thin lace covers her ribs, and though he _won’t_ , he desperately wants to tear into it. His fingers trace across the edge as he cups her breast. Her fingers trail up his shoulder, resting against the back of his neck. His eyes flicker back up to hers. There’s that slow motion moment—one of his favorite moments to have with her. Like it’s just them, like there’s nothing else in the world but him and Amy, quietly facing each other. He has so much love and admiration for her, and he’s just looking at her, just breathing her in, his head void of all thoughts that aren’t _Amy._

The silence is so thick that each breath sounds so loud, so _intentional._ Each shallow breath from her lips begs for more of him, and he’d promised—not more than six hours ago—to do his absolute best to fulfill his wife’s every need. Slowly, _so slowly_ , his hands slip down her sides. Her eyes remain on his, attention unwavering even with the anticipation of what’s to come coursing between them. 

She gasps when he clutches her closer, lifting her onto his hips and turning them around in one swift motion. He presses her back against the wall, his face buried in her chest. His hands smooth over the soft skin of her back, one straying long enough to tug the strap off of one of her shoulders, pulling the lace away so that he can press wet kisses to her skin uninhibited. He winds his arm around her waist, the other coming up so his thumb can brush across the nipple that isn’t occupied by his tongue. The texture of the lace against his skin is _killing him_ , and he knows she isn’t faring much better. 

“Jake,” she whimpers, her hands loosely carding through his hair. She arches closer to him, gasping and sighing when he nibbles gently. 

He groans against her skin, his words breezing against the cool, wet mark his tongue left. “What do you need, Ames?” 

“You,” she whispers without missing a beat. “I need you.” 

He laughs, a dark, rumbling sound. His hand helps her leg to stay hooked around his hip as he shifts, making the short trek to the bed. When he leans down, his knee presses into the mattress between her thighs. She clutches onto his shoulders, desperate to keep her grip close to his body. 

“Ames…” He trails off, pressing a kiss to her collarbone, then untangling himself from her enough that he can see the clasp on the heel that she’s still wearing. He works with one hand to undo the little strap around her ankle, gently rubbing away the stress that the whole night in heels surely caused. She starts kissing his neck when he’s busy with the other heel. He hums, a soft little _yes_ slipping out, temporarily distracted from her shoe. 

He manages to overcome his desire, unbuckling her other shoe and letting it drop to the floor with a soft _thud_. He shifts again, hitching her leg over his hip with his grip on her thigh, his whispers falling against her ear. “I need you to be more specific than that, Amy.” 

He was encouraging her to get explicit. He expects her to tell him what _part_ of him she needs. What she says instead takes him entirely by surprise. 

“I need…” Her voice breaks deliciously when he bites just above her collarbone, soothing the mark with his tongue. “My husband.” 

He freezes. 

He could cry. He _might_ cry. 

_He’s her husband._

Never— _never_ —not in a million years, in any version of his life, did Jake think he would ever be married to someone as spectacular as Amy Santiago. He never would have let himself think that he deserved someone as amazing as her. But she shows him everyday that he _does_ deserve her love. That he _is_ worth it, despite thinking for so much of his life that love simply was not meant for him. 

Not love like this, at least. 

Not love like Amy’s. 

He is married to the smartest, most caring, all around just _best_ person he’s ever known. He’s so _overwhelmed._ With love, with gratitude, with desire. And he just can’t understand—no matter how hard he tries—how the Jake Peralta that (not all that long ago!) had an entire bathtub full of unopened mail can be the same Jake Peralta with a little silver band on the fourth finger of his left hand, with a home and a life full of love with the most amazing person on the planet. 

He knows. He understands. He’s worked for this, and he’s put love and time and effort into this, and if his many conversations with Amy on this subject have taught him anything—it’s that he’s worth this. He believes her when she says it. 

But he just _can’t_ wrap his head around it. He can follow the map from point A to point B. He can see every step he took along the way to get to this moment, but when he looks at the big picture, it’s a bunch of scribbled lines that leave him feeling more confused than before. 

Jake Peralta, hand complete with a silver wedding band slipping between Amy’s legs, knows exactly how he got here. 

But Jake Peralta with a bathtub full of mail would never have believed this. Jake Peralta with a peanut and a stupid bet never would have believed this. Jake Peralta with lipstick smudged on the corner of his lips, storming out of Amy’s parents’ house… He _never_ would have believed this. 

And yet… it is. 

He looks into her eyes, all soft warmth, and he pulls her into a tight, affectionate hug. He’s overcome with emotion when her arms wind around him, holding him close. Her fingers card through his hair comfortingly, a stark contrast to the way they tugged through his hair moments earlier. Even in the middle of what he’s sure is about to be _great_ sex, even when seconds earlier, his mind was preoccupied with guiding Amy into talking dirty for him, even when his erection is still pressing hard against her body—the entire mood shifts. 

He leans her back, pressing her into the bed gently. He leans his forehead on hers. They’re both smiling, holding each other close. Her eyes are sparkling in the dim light, and he’s not sure if it’s from the happy tears that keep trying to escape from him, too. 

“I love you,” he whispers. He hopes that she can hear the promise in his voice. 

“I love you, too,” she whispers back. 

“You know, uhm…” He trails off, the back of his knuckles brushing against her cheek. “A few years ago, when we were in a little market in Brooklyn that had somehow run out of _almond milk…”_ He shakes his head, grinning at the smile the memory of the first time they’d said they loved one another puts on her face. “If you would have told me that day that today I would be right here?” He laces his fingers with hers, tracing over the new band that’s joined her engagement ring. His voice is barely above a whisper. “I never would have believed it.” 

Amy moves her hand to rest on his face. She’s looking into his eyes in that way that makes him feel like he’s the only person in the world. Her thumb strokes across his cheek. “Honestly?” He raises his eyebrows, waiting. “I would have.” 

And with that, she kisses him. He can feel every bit of love and certainty in this kiss, every reassuring word she’s spoken to him over the last few years, every quiet moment that was reserved just for them. 

There’s no urgency in him when he begins to trail kisses down her body again. There’s none of the hunger—though it’s there, building within him. He wants her. He wants her _bad_. 

But more than that, he wants to show her. 

He wants to show her every tender kiss he has to offer, wants to show her how good he can make her feel with his gentle, loving touch. He replaces her strap on her shoulder, pulling the lace back into place. His tongue doesn’t explore her skin like it usually does. Instead, he presses soft, warm kisses to every bit of exposed skin he can see. He inches them down, slow and steady, until he’s kissing along her belly, his fingers stroking up and down her soft thighs. 

Amy’s a mess of shaky, stuttered breaths, soft hums littered throughout. He settles between her thighs, looking up to admire her. He wants to commit every inch of her body, every tiny detail of this moment, to his memory. Her fingers ruffle through his hair, a soft smile on her lips. A smile spreads across his face, and he shakes his head at her, moving his kisses down to her inner thighs. 

He knows exactly how to get her writhing underneath him. Tonight, that isn’t what he wants. Tonight, he sucks and nibbles at her inner thigh, building anticipation. Tonight, he relishes in the feeling of her fingers gently playing with his hair, in the soft sighs leaving her lips—as opposed to the rushed curses and desperate _Jake_ s he might otherwise receive. 

Tonight, he has a plan. He’s going to take it slow, and he’s going to nurse her desire, and he’s going to show her _exactly_ how much he loves her. There are nights for frantic, desperate fucking. Tonight is simply not one of those nights. 

He presses his lips to the center of the fabric that he hasn’t yet stripped off of her. 

And that’s when he hears it. 

He slowly lifts his head, an eyebrow raised at her stupidly adorable face. She’s covering her mouth, eyes wide—because she just _yawned._

“I’m sorry, babe. Am I boring you?” 

Amy laughs, and he can’t help but to laugh with her. He presses a kiss to her hip, resting his face there and smiling up at her as she stumbles over her words. 

“You’re not boring me.” She shakes her head, another soft laugh leaving her lips as she props herself up on her elbows, her fingers trailing against his cheek. “It feels so good, Jake. I’m just _so_ exhausted.” 

“Oh my god—thank _god,”_ Jake sighs. “I thought I was the only one. I was starting to feel old.” 

“Weddings are a lot of work!” Amy shakes her head, looking shocked. “I mean, I’ve been planning this wedding forever and I knew that, but… I didn’t expect to be this tired tonight.” 

Jake muffles a laugh against her skin. “Wait ‘til you find out how much work marriage is,” he teases. “I’ve heard the work never stops.” 

“Hey, it’s too late to back out now, Peralta.” 

“There’s always annulment.” He shrugs.

She laughs. “I’m sorry. I’m good, we can keep going.” His eyes are flickering over her amusedly when she yawns a second time. “It’s just because we’re talking about being tired!” 

He presses another slow kiss to her hip. “Yeah,” he whispers. He begins trailing kisses, much more sparsely, back up her abdomen. He crawls up until he’s pressing soft, slow kisses to her lips. He lies next to her, opening his arms for her. She settles against his chest without hesitation.

“We can keep going. Or,” he continues, “we could wait one more night.” 

Amy’s lips tug into a smile at that. “One more night?” 

“One more night,” he repeats. 

“Okay,” she agrees. She waits until he turns his head to continue, her voice lowering, eyes serious on his. “But I’m gonna fuck you so hard tomorrow.” 

He laughs softly. “C’mon, Ames. Don’t turn me on more, I’m so sleepy.” 

“I’m just saying.” She closes her eyes, snuggling further into his arms. “You better get as much sleep as you can, ‘cause you’re gonna need it.” 

“You promise?” She doesn’t say anything, but her hand searches for his. A smile spreads across his lips as he feels her pinky finger wrap around his. He breathes another soft laugh, leaning his forehead against hers. “Deal.” 

“I love you.” 

“I love _you.”_

He tugs the comforter over them. He falls asleep with his sleepy smile hidden against Amy’s shoulder, thinking about the only thing better than a night with Amy—the promise of one _more_ night with her. 

—

Jake groans quietly, reaching across the bed and peeking his eyes open only when he doesn’t find Amy in the place he expected to find her. His eyebrows scrunch together, but by the time he’s done rubbing his eyes, he hears the water running in the bathroom. 

He rolls over, stretching and snuggling back into the comforter, certain that Amy getting up is what woke him in the first place. He groans again when there’s a knock at the door, dragging himself out of bed with the comforter wrapped snug around him to figure out _who_ is bothering him this early—he doesn’t even know what time it is—the morning after his wedding night. 

“Jake!” Charles exclaims as soon as the door is open. Jake squints his eyes at him, unable to even get a word out before Charles continues. “Are you naked under there? Did you put a baby in Amy?” 

“What? Charles—I’m not—”

“Not important!” He interrupts. Jake shakes his head, rolling his eyes fondly at his weird friend. Charles holds up a bottle of champagne and—

“Is that a flash drive?” Jake reaches out, taking the drive and inspecting it. 

“It _is_ , in fact, a flash drive.” Charles holds the champagne a little further out, waiting for Jake to take it. “I figured I’d give you two the night alone, but I wanted to make sure you got this. Think of it as my wedding gift.” 

“You already gave us a wedding gift.” 

“This is my _real_ wedding gift.” Charles shrugs. “We both know the KitchenAid is just for me to use when we have get-togethers at your place.” 

Jake laughs quietly, finally accepting the bottle of champagne. “I’m afraid of what I’ll find on this flash drive… but thank you, Boyle.” 

Charles smiles, a touch of emotion seeming to hit him. “I’m just so happy I finally get to give it to you. I hope you enjoy it.” With that, he begins backing away. Jake grins, waving at his friend, then backing into the hotel room, eyeing the flash drive suspiciously behind the safety of the door. 

“Babe?” He calls. He hears some rummaging in the bathroom. “Charles brought us a weird flash drive.” 

“A weird flash drive?” She calls back. “I’ll be out in a minute. Should I be worried?” 

“He said he’s glad he finally got to give it to us? So I think yes.” Jake’s preoccupied, letting the comforter fall to the floor as he pulls Amy’s laptop out of her bag, then plugs the flash drive in while he talks. “I don’t know, it’s probably a powerpoint presentation trying to convince us to start a family, knowing Charles.” 

Amy laughs from the bathroom. “Sounds about right.” 

He chuckles when the file opens, a single video saved to a folder titled _domestic peraltiago_. He double clicks the video, grinning at the first image that comes up. It’s of him and Amy years earlier—before they were even dating. He isn’t sure exactly when it’s from. They’re in the bullpen, and they’re both laughing, but Amy’s throwing her hands up in the air like he just said something ridiculous. 

Jake whines impatiently. “What are you doing? I can’t believe I woke up on my first morning as a married man and I didn’t even get to open my eyes and see my beautiful wife first thing.” 

She laughs again. “I’ll just be a minute. What’s on the drive?” 

“A video,” he murmurs, distracted again. 

“Start it. I’ll be, like, one second.” 

“Mhm,” he hums in that _I’ll believe it when I see it_ tone. He hits play, wincing when the opening chord to Ed Sheeran’s _Thinking Out Loud_ blares out of the speaker at him. 

“Is that Ed Sheeran?” Amy calls out. 

Jake rushes to turn it down a bit, laughing. “Of course it is.” 

It’s a slideshow. It shuffles through pictures of him and Amy, both old and new. Some of them are pictures he’s seen before, others he doesn’t recall. He laughs softly at one. Amy’s head is on his shoulder. He’s smiling at her, practically holding her, and it looks like she’s sleeping. He remembers the night well—Rosa asked if he wanted her to take Amy home, he assured her that he had it under control, and Charles quickly snapped the picture, _so you can look back on this moment when you’re married._ His smile grows as he reflects on the memory. 

“Is that at Shaw’s?” Amy asks. He jumps, startled by her voice being much closer than he expected. He turns around, and just like that, the video is completely forgotten. 

“Holy shit.” 

“Is that picture from—”

“Amy,” Jake interrupts. “You can’t—” He scoffs, taking a step closer to her, still completely ignoring the video. “You can’t just walk out of the bathroom looking like _that_ and act like nothing even happened.” 

She laughs. “Like what?” 

“Like—” He scoffs again. “This is easily the hottest thing I’ve ever seen.” She’s wearing that same white lingerie from the night before, only now the natural light is peeking through the curtains, accentuating the already delicious contrast between the fabric and her skin. Her hair, instead of those perfect curls, is in messy waves. He wants to run his hands through them, to tangle his fingers through the strands. It’s hanging down around her shirt— _his_ shirt, his white dress shirt from the day before, which hangs off of her in a way that, despite being wrinkled and a little too big, looks, just, _so fucking good._ She rolls her eyes. “No, Ames, don’t—seriously. The only thing that could ever be hotter than this— _maybe_ —would be you dressed as Holly Gennaro.” 

She raises her eyebrows knowingly, then looks down at herself. “Really?” She tugs at the shirt, which in turn shifts it off of one of her shoulders a bit. He exhales, and he’s about to take a step toward her when his own voice catches his attention between Ed Sheeran’s words on the video. 

_I want you to say it so bad, Santiago. Let me get my phone out, though._

The video is a little shaky. He hadn’t been paying enough attention at the time to anything but Amy to possibly notice, but it appears that Charles was trying his best to be discreet behind the camera. 

_Jake._ He smirks at her, and she shakes her head. _You really want me to say it, coerced and all?_

_Camera’s rolling, Amy. Whenever you’re ready._ From this angle, it’s clear that Jake was never actually recording her. 

She sighs, but her smile is unwavering. She just barely wipes the smile off of her face before speaking. _Jake Peralta is the best detective at the ninety-ninth precinct._

They’re both smiling at each other when the video cuts into the next picture—a picture of Jake resting his head on Amy’s shoulder one morning before the briefing. 

“I can’t believe he took a video of that,” Amy whispers. 

Jake can’t help his laughter, but he sobers up as soon as his eyes fall on her again. His eyes are flickering across the lace, his attention reluctantly getting dragged right back to the screen when he hears another video. 

He doesn’t quite recognize the guitar in the background. It’s a video he’s never seen before, and one that he doesn’t even have a blurry memory of. It’s old—like back at the beginning of their arrangement old. They’re all over each other, laughing, smiling, _touching_. He’s playing with her hair, singing—

“Oh my god, are you singing the same song that’s playing on the video?” Amy laughs, making her way over to tuck into his side. He laughs along with her, his hand slipping underneath his shirt to trace along the lace on her hip. 

“I don’t remember this at all.” 

“It’s one of my favorites,” she murmurs. “I haven’t watched it in at least a year.” 

“You’ve seen this?” He looks down at her, an eyebrow arched. 

“Charles sent it to me the next morning. I guess I saved it, because I found it in my phone when we weren’t speaking.” 

Jake sucks in a sharp breath. “Sounds like a terrible time to find a video like this.” 

She laughs softly. “I cried in front of Benji _and_ Julian. I’m pretty sure they were halfway to posting up outside of the precinct to wait for you to show up so they could intervene somehow.” 

“I bet the only reason they didn’t is because they knew you’d show up at work before me, anyway.” 

_Jake is…_

He whips his head back toward the screen at the next video. It’s a video of Amy in the evidence room. 

_He’s my favorite person._ She shrugs, like that’s all there is to it. 

“He told me this was for your birthday,” she informs him softly. “I wondered why he didn’t play it at your party.” 

_I think one of my favorite things about Jake is that, ya’know, he’s confident, and he’s proud of himself—like, he_ knows _he’s great… but there’s so much more to him that he doesn’t even recognize._

He looks down at her, a soft smile on his lips. She stares straight at the screen, watching intently. 

_Like what?_ Charles prompts. 

_Like… He doesn’t know how smart he is._ She shrugs again. _He’s quick to say he’s a great detective—which is true—and of course a lot of that_ is _based on intuition, but that’s not all it is. Jake Peralta is smart, and he’s caring, and he’s so much more than he gives himself credit for._ She smiles his favorite soft, almost shy smile at the camera. _He’s my best friend, and the person I trust most in the world, and he deserves…_ She trails off, shaking her head. _He’s incredible, and he deserves so much happiness. I love you, Jake._ She opens her mouth, but the video cuts to the next picture. 

“I was going to say Happy Birthday,” she explains, looking up at him. 

He grins down at her, the edges of his vision blurry with the beginnings of tears. “I love you so much, Ames.” 

She presses her lips to his, soft and slow. His hands run up her hips, gently clutching her closer to his body with his hands on her lower back. She smiles against his lips, nestling closer to him. “I love you, Jake Peralta.” 

He chokes out an emotional laugh. “That’s Jake Peralta-Santiago to you.” He wipes at the corner of his eye, trying to chase away a tear. “You’ve made me cry so much in the past two days.” 

“Welcome to marriage, babe.” She grins teasingly at him, nudging him in the side with her elbow. “I’m gonna make you cry so much.” 

“I can’t wait,” he whispers, his lips pressed to her jaw. He leans his head against hers when there’s a new sound from the video. 

_Listen, Charles._ Jake’s obviously drunk, based on the state of his appearance and the way that he’s slumped haphazardly into the cushions on Boyle’s couch. He ruffles his fingers through his curls, which just accentuates the way that they’re wildly strewn above his forehead, standing taller than normal. 

_I’m listening,_ Charles prompts. 

_She’s… She’s perfect, Boyle._ He sighs, his fingers drawn straight back to his hair as he thinks. _I mean, she’s not, ya’know, but that just makes me love her even more. She’s weird, and she’s nerdy and particular and she doesn’t even like Die Hard—_

“I like the second one,” she interrupts. He rolls his eyes, not fighting the crooked, adoring smile that creeps onto his lips. 

_But I love all those little pieces of her, ya’know? Like, I don’t know—if you would’ve asked me five years ago who my dream girl was, I don’t think I would’ve described Amy…_

“I’m just gonna be real, mine was _way_ cuter,” Amy mutters, her eyebrows furrowed. Jake’s frowning at his own words—he doesn’t remember this video.

 _But she’s better than any dream I could have ever envisioned for myself, Charles._ He shakes his head, looking at the camera almost in wonder. _She pushes me in ways that I never knew I even needed, and she makes me feel…_ He’s seemingly struggling to find the right words. _She makes me feel good about the world and my place in it. She’s so smart, and kind, and pretty, and…_ He laughs softly through his smile. _She’s not the best person I know. She’s just the best person. Period. And…_ He looks down at his lap, his smile sort of small and private. _God, ya’know, I just… I can’t wait to be Amy Santiago’s husband._

It cuts straight to another video. _Do you, Amy Santiago, take Jake Peralta to be your husband?_

_I do._

_And do you, Jake Peralta, take Amy Santiago to be your wife?_

_I absolutely do,_ he murmurs. Charles laughs tearfully in the background. They can hear it over the music, and Jake and Amy both laugh. 

_By the power vested in me by the state of New York, I’d like to announce that your honeymoon vacation request status has officially been moved from pending to approved. You’re married. You may kiss the bride._

Jake’s already teary again when he watches them dip their heads in to kiss one another. The video changes again, to Jake and Amy during their first dance. Charles had edited over the audio, but they’re whispering to each other, smiling, holding each other close. He leans his forehead against hers, their eyes fluttering shut, but their smiles remaining intact. 

It changes again. They’re surrounded by their families. Jake’s smiling at Roger, who has his hand on Jake’s shoulder. Benji comes in from the other side, hugging both Jake and Amy. Jake’s attention shifts to his new brother-in-law, and they’re all laughing. 

“I’m glad your dad came over and talked to you,” Amy comments, her attention back on Jake. 

He smiles. “Yeah. We, uh, made plans, actually. For after the honeymoon. Which…” His eyes flicker over her face. “You know, I have you to thank for.” His hand shifts to twirl her hair around his fingers, tucking it behind her ear. “I mean, there’s still a chance he’ll flake—but I don’t know. I feel like things are different this time. So thank you. For seeing through me and reaching out to him.”

“I was worried,” she admits softly, “that I was overstepping.” 

He shakes his head, quick to brush it off. “I love you, Ames. Thank you.” 

She smiles, then leans her head against his chest, turning her attention back toward the video. The song is coming to a close, so he knows the video’s about to end. There are flashes of old pictures contrasting with more footage from the reception. A picture of them from that Thanksgiving a few years ago, talking to each other amongst a sea of people at the bar paired alongside a video of Jake swiping frosting from their wedding cake on the tip of Amy’s nose, Amy’s eyebrows wrinkling when his tongue darts out to lick it away. 

The song fades. The video changes one more time, a video from the night before. A slightly intoxicated, deliriously happy Jake is smiling at Charles, both of them reflected in the bathroom mirror. Jake’s bowtie is untied, but still hanging around his neck. The camera pans so that it’s facing Jake head on. 

_So? How happy are you?_ Charles asks. 

That lopsided smile that Jake can’t fake makes its way onto his lips. He shakes his head, unable to stop smiling long enough to get out his full sentence. _You remember how happy I was after I solved that unsolvable case?_ He waits a moment for Charles to nod. His smile fades, a more serious look overcoming him. _That solve—that feeling—it’s_ nothing _compared to how I feel right now._ His smile creeps back up on him. _I just married my best friend, Charles._ He laughs this carefree, happy laugh. _I can’t think of anything else that even comes close to how happy I feel right now._

The video fades to black, and Amy twists around in Jake’s arms. Her eyes are glistening with tears the same way his are, but the way she’s looking at him makes him swallow. 

“Go brush your teeth,” she whispers. 

His attention is drawn back to her body. Her fingers slip into the edge of his boxers, pressed close to his hip. He hums, trying to find the self control to tear himself away from her long enough to do what she’d told him to do. He tugs at his shirt, watching the fabric slip off of her other shoulder, sliding down her arms. He watches the goosebumps appear on her arms as the shirt slips away. He wants to chase them away with his lips. 

Her hand slips further into his boxers, grasping him, slowly stroking until the promise of what’s to come has him sighing, clutching at her hips, his body quickly responding to her touch. 

“Go,” she repeats, but her hand doesn’t stop it’s gentle, torturous work. She holds him steady with her hand on his hip, her other hand working him slowly and evenly until his breath is stuttering. He grabs a handful of her chest, the texture of the lace under his fingertips turning him on that much more. 

She laughs softly, clicking her tongue at him. “Guess I’ll just have to take you there myself.” 

She takes a step back, removing her hand from his hip and adjusting his shirt back onto her shoulders. He stares at her through lidded eyes, following her lead when she takes a step toward the bathroom, her hand maintaining its rhythm as she leads him out of the bedroom. 

Once inside, she positions herself to the side of him, handing him his toothbrush, rhythm only pausing long enough to encourage him to get the process started. Her lips brush against his neck when he starts fiddling with the tube of toothpaste. He hums when she immediately finds that spot that drives him crazy, nibbles her way up from there until she’s whispering in his ear. “Two minutes.” 

Never in his life would Jake have expected to find somebody telling him how long to brush his teeth sexy, but leave it to his wife to keep him on his toes. 

He nods, beginning to brush his teeth the second she’s far enough away to give him enough space to do it. 

Jake can think of approximately zero scenarios where he thought he’d be this turned on while brushing his teeth. He’s trying to keep his focus enough to count the seconds—he knows Amy is—but he’s thoroughly distracted. She moans softly against his shoulder between kisses. His hips stir involuntarily at the sound. He knows she’s fucking with him, knows that she knows exactly how to get a response from him, but he doesn’t have it in him to care. She speeds up and he completely loses count, groaning softly at the new sensation. Amy laughs against his skin. If he wasn’t completely at her will, he might do something to retaliate. 

Instead, he continues brushing his teeth, starting a new count and just hoping that he can guess close enough to the right timing because _fuck_ , he doesn’t want to start over, he wants _her._

She takes a step back from him, maintaining her grip when he leans down to spit out his toothpaste. He quickly rinses his mouth, but when he’s finished and stands back up straight, he’s surprised to find that she isn’t standing up next to him. 

He leans against the wall, a soft, unintentional moan escaping his lips as he realizes why. His fingers on one hand weave into his hair, his other hand loosely tangling her hair into his fist as she slides him into her mouth. The fabric of his boxers tickles his legs as they slip down. He stays completely still, breath shaky and uneven. It’s been over a month since she’d last given him head, and he’s only kind of sure he can last more than two minutes like this. 

She hums appreciatively, her eyes flickering up to look at him and he’s so fucked. She’s taking him slowly, watching intently as he falls apart. So fucked, she takes him deeper and he’s _so fucked_. He’s gripping at the door frame and incoherently talking. She’s nursing his desire, tongue tracing slow as her hand moves faster, and he’s completely blown away because this isn’t even _close_ to his favorite thing she does with her mouth but _fuck_ it’s phenomenal. 

“Amy—Oh fuck, god, Ames—” He dissolves into a soft groan. 

She laughs softly, pumping him in her hand and looking up at him from underneath her eyelashes with that mischievous look on her face. He shakes his head at her, eyes fluttering shut again because this feels amazing and she’s amazing and she _married him_ and god, this is _his life_.

He lets her hair slip through his fingers, instead brushing his knuckles along her cheekbone. Her lips slip apart when his thumb brushes against them, and he could literally crumble when she turns to trail slow, wet kisses along his length, eyes still set on him. 

He grips her shoulders gently, and she looks up at him, her hand remaining on him when she reluctantly stands. Her lips ghost against his. There’s a moment, this tense moment of silence, both of them just looking at each other, _waiting_. 

Jake breaks first, his hands steady on her face as he pulls her into a kiss. She hums against his lips, breaking the kiss to gasp when he lifts her up, quickly turning to shift their position, pressing her back against the wall. 

His kisses are indulgent. His hands explore her body, shifting to help her when she grinds against him. He’s rutting into her, kissing her neck, gasping against her skin, and then, as if he can’t possibly wait any longer, he’s carrying her to the bed. 

He wants to slow it down for her. He wants desperately for their first time together as husband and wife to be—he doesn’t know— _magical,_ or something. But Amy’s fingers are digging into his shoulder, and Amy’s voice is soft in his ear, and while he had a healthy amount of self-control the night before, it seems to have all abandoned him in his time of greatest need. 

“How do you—” He mutters, tugging incessantly at the mess of straps and lace covering her lower half. The _waist thing_ —he’s not sure what it’s called—must have some sort of clasp, because it doesn’t give when he tries to tug it past her hips, and he can see that the straps that attach to her thighs are going to prevent him from pulling her panties off. 

A little laugh slips out of Amy. He quirks an eyebrow at her, but the expression falters when she begins stroking him again. She _isn’t_ helping him. She wants him, and he wants to give her what she wants, but he can’t figure out this lingerie that he’d found _so_ sexy just a few moments ago. Now he hates it, and he wonders if she’d be mad if he _did_ tear into it. 

She tightens her grip on him, and his desire becomes more of a desperate need. 

“You know,” he murmurs shakily, “if you kill me on day one of marriage, I don’t think you get the life insurance claim.” 

She twists her wrist, eyes glimmering with pride when he moans for her. She has this self-satisfied smirk on her face that’s so hot, but he wants to even the playing field. He wants to get _her_ making noises for _him_. He gives in, rubbing softly through her underwear in hopes that it will convince her to help him undress her. 

Instead, his plan backfires. 

“Jake, please,” she whimpers, and it shoots a little tingle through his whole body. 

He clenches his jaw, his voice pleading. “I can’t get them off, Ames.” He stops touching her again, clearly frustrated as he begins inspecting the lingerie more closely in search of a clasp, or a tie, or _something_.

“I need you, Jake,” she begs in that breathy way that always breaks him down. It’s usually reserved for moments when he’s teasing her, holding back enough to keep her begging. It’s the surefire way to get him to stop what he’s doing, to get him to give in to whatever she wants. This time he isn’t resisting her. He _wants_ to touch her. She’s deliberately teasing him and he knows it, but it’s affecting him regardless. 

He grabs her panties, tugging them to the side roughly. It jerks her hips forward, closer to him, and a little, unintentional moan escapes her lips. “Is this what you wanted?” He hisses. He lets out a rough breath when he touches her, his fingers finding her wet and ready for him. “Fuck, Amy.” It comes out frustrated. She closes her eyes, sighing and biting her lip as he falls into a rhythm. “Fuck, Amy,” he repeats more softly, a sort of whine escaping him as his eyes watch his fingers work. 

“What’s wrong, Jake?” She stares at him, a little crease between her eyebrows. His eyes flicker up to her face, watching her expression intently as he works a finger into her. She sighs, her whole body reacting to the change. 

Jake offers her a breathy laugh. “What’s wrong, Ames?” 

His eyes flicker back down when the fabric slips back into his way. He tugs it away again, jerking her hips forward with the movement. Almost immediately, the fabric falls back into place again. Amy whines, her body shifting in search of more of his attention. 

“Take these off.” 

“Make me.” Her voice is low, and her eyes are intense, and Jake, though he’s thought this many, many times over the course of their relationship, has never wanted more desperately to be inside her. 

He clenches his jaw again, then raises his eyebrows at her. “Are you sure?” 

_“Please,”_ she whispers. He swallows, his hands already shifting to grasp at one of the straps on her thigh. “Make me, Jake.” 

His hand slides up her body slowly, his fingers slipping under the belt, holding it in place. He watches what every shallow breath does to her body, every muscle tensed as her chest rises and falls. He gives one firm tug and _snap_ —the strap tears away from the belt. 

And technically, that would’ve been enough. 

Technically, he could have pulled the second most annoying piece of lace—second only to the stupid belt he can’t figure out—off of her body, and his problem would have been solved. 

But he’s wanted to tear this pretty, white lace off of her since the second he laid eyes on it the night before—and Amy _never_ lets him ruin her lingerie like this, even when things get heated and he’s being a little rough. He’s done it once (twice if you count the time he cut her out of that dress a few years ago) and she was mad enough about it that he never let it happen again. 

So instead of tugging her underwear off and getting back to work, he grips the other strap. She hums when he snaps it against her thigh once before ripping it away from the belt. And then, because it was just so satisfying to hear that quick, little tearing sound, he situates both hands on that stupid fucking belt. He tugs it roughly, Amy’s whole body arching off of the bed with the motion, and then _so_ slowly, he tears at it. 

The ripping sound cuts through the room. Amy whimpers, and he’s not sure if it’s in response to him literally ripping her clothes off of her body or if it’s about the way that his hands follow the curve of her hips when the fabric falls away, pressing her body closer to him. His lips are warm against her torso, and he’s relishing in the opportunity to finally tease her back a little. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he murmurs. He crawls up her body, pressing wet kisses along her waist, between her ribs. His fingers creep up her back, and he can feel the clasp of her bra back there. It’s not that he _has to_ tear it off of her—it’s just that logistically, unclasping it doesn’t really work to his benefit. 

See, she’s still wearing his shirt. 

And he _wants her_ to still be wearing his shirt. 

And if he unclasps the bra, there’s the whole awkward pulling the straps out of the sleeves thing, or there’s taking off the shirt and putting it back on (which, in his opinion, is just way too many steps), or, even worse, there’s the possibility that she’ll lose the shirt completely—which, as far as he’s concerned, simply isn’t an option. 

So he looks up at her, one final glance for permission. She arches her chest closer to him, her fingers weaving into his hair as he mouths over the fabric. His hands slide up her back, around her shoulders, slow enough that he just _knows_ the anticipation is killing her. She rocks her hips into him, a silent plea for him to speed up. 

And like he said, he promised to fulfill her every need. 

So he grips the thin fabric on either side, his fingers dipping underneath and making her breath hitch. He pauses for a moment, one of his eyebrows raised at her, and just when she’s about to finally complain—

 _Rip._

His tongue is flicking over her nipple, his hand pawing at her other breast. She runs her fingers through his hair, whimpering as he pulls her closer, his hands still underneath the shirt hanging from her shoulders. Everything’s moving so fast. Amy hitches her leg around his hip, and he lets out a low groan when she rocks her hips against his. 

He catches her wrists when they slip down to her hips. “Mm-mmm,” he hums, still kissing his way across her chest. He pins her wrists against the mattress, sliding them up so they’re on either side of her shoulders. “Slow.” 

“Please,” she whimpers. This time she _isn’t_ teasing him. This time he’s in control, and she’s gonna have to try a little harder than _please_ to get him to let go of this opportunity to get her all worked up. 

He chuckles quietly, his right hand slipping off of her wrist to twine his fingers with her left. He feels the cool contrast of her wedding band against her warm skin, and he looks up at her with a soft smile. 

She’s frustrated. She arches against him, encouraging him to do something, _anything._ She’s craving some sort of friction, and he knows the feeling, but he wants to drag this out. He wants to watch her, to tease her, to love her. 

He presses his kisses lower, interlocking their fingers together on their other hands and dragging her hands further down the sheets as he crawls down her body. Her hands struggle against his when his lips settle onto her panties. She shifts her hips, but he has his weight on her in a way that doesn’t give her much mobility. He laughs against her, pressing his lips into the exact spot she needs him, smirking at the broken sigh the vibration drags out of her. 

“You look so good like this,” he murmurs, his words rumbling against her agonizingly. He takes a second to admire her, all wound up, ripped lingerie, his shirt hanging off of her shoulders. 

“I’d look better,” she shoots back, “with you inside me.” 

He laughs, his hands still containing her persistent hands. He can’t argue with that logic. “Great negotiating, babe. D’you learn that at a seminar?” 

She whines, trying helplessly to shift against him. “Please, Jake.” 

“Please what?” He quirks an eyebrow at her, and she looks like she might actually choke him the second her hands are free. 

“Touch me,” she breathes. _“Please.”_

He looks up at her, his eyes intense on hers. “Make me.” 

“God, I’m fucking _trying—”_

In one swift motion, Jake lets go of her wrists and tugs her underwear down her legs. She gasps softly as he guides them off, shifting her thighs further apart as he resituates himself between her legs. His hands are firm on her thighs, but he’s just looking up at her. 

“What do you need, Ames?” He repeats his question from the night before, his voice low and urgent. 

All the frustration melts away from her expression almost instantly. She’s smiling that sweet, private smile meant only for him, and her eyes are big and soft on his. 

“You,” she whispers. “My husband.” 

She relaxes into the sheets as his tongue finally provides her some relief. He’s swirling his tongue against her clit, his fingers slowly coming up to tease her. Her fingers find their way into his hair, this soft, breathy rendition of his name leaving her lips and god, he just wants to hear it again and again. He eases a finger into her, turning his head to gently kiss her inner thigh as she hums at the new sensation. He adds a second finger soon after the first, and this is her sweet spot—two fingers pumping into her, his tongue stroking against her with that perfect pressure. 

Her fingers tighten in his hair. “Fuck, Jake, please—please.” 

He chuckles softly, his tongue pausing its work long enough for him to teasingly murmur, “Please what?” 

Her responding moan is long and drawn out. Her fingers tug through his hair a little harder, moving him to exactly where she needs him. Another laugh rumbles against her skin because _he knows_. He knows how close she is, and he knows exactly what he’d have to do to make her come—but he wants to draw it out just a little longer. He wants a few more minutes of those desperate sounds, a few more minutes of his wife coming undone for him. 

His rhythm slows, his tongue looping lazy little whirlpools across her skin. He pulls back a bit, admiring her frustrated groan at his new, much slower pace. His lips press against her gently, and he closes his eyes to relish in the feeling of her fingers in his hair. Finally, he lays his head against her hip, the same way he had the night before. 

“You know you’re everything I’ve ever wanted?” 

Her eyes soften, though the tension in her eyebrows does not. She opens her mouth to respond, but the second she does, he speeds up again. She’s left gasping, her eyes slipping shut. 

“You’re everything, Ames.” 

He presses a soft kiss to her hip, increasing his speed once again. He shakes his head, grinning up at her, though her eyes are clamped shut and she can’t see it. His fingers are curling into her at the perfect angle, and he knows that she’ll be falling apart for him after just a few seconds more.

“Everything,” he repeats softly.

He thinks back to that day, when Amy’s words washed away his frustration at grocery stores, at shopping carts, at shelves void of almond milk. He thinks back to those words, whispered against her skin hundreds of times by now, murmured and muttered and growled in frustration, at times. He thinks back to that man, the man who was newly in a relationship, newly _Amy’s_. 

He stands by his belief that that Jake never would have believed that a few short years later, he’d be Amy Santiago’s husband. 

And if you would have told him that, his heart full of nothing but love and admiration in some little Brooklyn market, he may not have _believed it_... 

But he would have hoped with everything in him that it was true. 

She lets out a breathy moan when his tongue returns to her, and he only traces out _I love you_ , just like he did that day so long ago, once. 

She cries out his name, all pretty and broken. He hums against her skin in response, fingers slowing to carry her through it. Her thighs are shaking around him, and he turns his head to press soft kisses to her trembling muscles, burying whispered declarations of love into her skin for him to cultivate later. 

She whimpers softly when he pulls his fingers away from her. His wife is a sight to behold, flushed and exhausted, eyes fluttering closed, chest rising and falling spectacularly. He crawls up the bed, and her eyes slip shut when he presses soft kisses to her forehead, her cheek, the tip of her nose. 

“I love you so much,” he whispers. 

Her eyes peek open at him, and he can see the emotion in them. She leans closer, pressing her lips to his soft and slow. He loves these moments—all calm and tangled up in her, her fingers gently combing through his hair as he tries to catch his breath. She doesn’t say the words, but he feels them in every press of her lips. 

He hums against her lips when her fingers find him hard and wanting. He searches blindly, eyes squeezed shut at her touch, his fingers pleadingly grabbing at her hip. 

“You know,” she begins softly, grinning at his little gasp when she rolls onto her stomach, pulling him along with her so that his hips press against her lower back, “you’re lucky that _I_ love _you_ so much.” 

“So it _is_ luck,” he jokes. She positions him. He hisses at the sensation of just barely sliding into her, his head dropping against her back when she shifts back away from him. 

“Because if I _didn’t,”_ she continues, “then I might…” He exhales sharply when she shifts closer again, just _barely_ giving him some of that pressure that he’s so desperately craving. “Hold a grudge. You know, about the whole…” He groans when she repeats the motion a third time. “Teasing me thing.” 

“Please,” he whispers. He pulls his shirt off of her shoulder, his lips warm and pleading on her skin. He grips onto her hip with the hand that isn’t wrapped up in his shirt, but he doesn’t dare pull her closer. “Ames, please.” 

“I don’t know…” A fourth time she repeats the motion, and he _needs_ more. He balls up his shirt even further, his fingers tracing the path of her spine. He curses under his breath when she wiggles her hips against him. “You know I love to hear you beg for me.” 

He lets out a rough, shaky breath. He’s not above begging—especially not when she has him in this position—but before he can get another word out, she’s moving underneath him. She sinks all the way onto him, prompting a choked gasp from him, muffled against her shoulder. She stills, shaky sighs spilling out of her. 

He _loves_ this position. His hands can smooth across every inch of her soft skin. It’s perfect for either of them to take control, or, more commonly, for them to work together, pushing and pulling against one another with a common goal in mind. He has perfect access to whisper in her ear—when he has the ability to form coherent words. Something about the angle gives her space to rock her hips against his in a different way than normal, and he’s _so_ ready to feel that. 

Except that he _isn’t_ feeling that—because she hasn’t moved an inch. 

“Are you okay?” He whispers when a few more seconds go by without any movement. 

She nods, her hips finally working into a slow rhythm, her breathy sighs making it that much harder for him to remain still. “Yeah—god, yeah, I just—” She hums, his fingers tightening on her hip in response. “You feel so good—I missed this so much.” 

His hand smooths up her side, his lips steady on her neck as his fingers brush across her ribs and admire her curves before ultimately returning to her hip. He pulls her to him once—gently, slowly. “Can I?” 

“Please,” she breathes. 

He uses his grip on her hip to guide her along his length, pulling her closer, _closer_. Her face drops into the pillows, muffling the incoherent words streaming out of her. She shifts her hips against his, and it feels unbearably good, but there’s something bothering him. 

Amy whimpers when he pulls out, looking over her shoulder at him. 

He shakes his head at her, gently pulling at her hip until she rolls over, concern clear on her features. She props herself up on her elbows, her fingers soft on his jaw. “What’s wrong, Jake?” 

He shakes his head again, pulling her closer, his arms winding around her as he presses his mouth to hers. Her lips are soft on his, and her fingers frame his face with each sweet kiss, and he’s consumed by how much he feels for her. Jake is surprised, not for the first time, at how he’s absolutely overflowing with love. His hands slowly explore her body, feeling her touch, her skin, the love cultivated in each tiny kiss she presses against his jaw. He reaches behind her, haphazardly pulling the pillows and stacking them. He leans her back against them, his eyes on hers. He tucks a stray strand of hair behind her ear, his thumb stroking along her cheek. 

“Nothing’s wrong, Amy.” He pauses to kiss her, laughs softly when she hums against his lips. His thumb brushes against her clit and she gasps, nuzzling her nose against his. “I’m just so happy.” 

He positions himself again. Her smile is so pretty, and he doesn’t take his eyes off of her as he pushes his hips forward, watching her tongue tug her bottom lip between her teeth as he enters her again. His hand remains on her face, her hand clutching at the back of his neck. Their foreheads are tipped together, eye contact only wavering when one of them pulls the other into a heated kiss. 

She tips her head back against the pillows, her hand slipping away from his neck to paw at her own chest. A low groan escapes Jake’s lips. 

“So fucking hot,” he murmurs against her neck. 

“Harder,” she whispers back. 

He presses the softest kiss to the corner of her mouth. His hand shifts to pull one of her legs around his hip, his fingers gripping at her inner thigh on the other leg, pushing it against the mattress to open her up more to him. He squeezes at her thigh as he fulfills her request, his hips snapping into hers with more force. She arches closer to him. 

“Oh fuck— _fuck,_ Jake—” Her hand presses against his abdomen, fingers shaky against his damp skin. 

“I love you so much,” he groans again. “Fuck, I can’t wait to spend the rest of my life with you.” She clutches him closer, her free hand returning to his neck again, fingers weaving into his hair. The hand on her thigh shifts, his thumb finding the perfect rhythm against her clit. He kisses her neck, his lips never leaving her skin as he moves up to her ear. “You’re so close, babe. Come for me, Ames.” 

His other hand remains on her jaw, tipping her face up so he can look into her eyes. His thumb brushes against her bottom lip, and he nods at her. His forehead tips against hers again, his hips and thumb both not letting up, though the way he’s gently nuzzling his nose against hers provides a completely different show of affection. 

_“Jake—”_ she murmurs against his lips. 

He interrupts her with a kiss, thumb working overtime. “Yes,” he whispers. “Fuck, I love you, _yes.”_

“I love—” she trails off into a moan that sends electricity running through his bones. She’s writhing underneath him, arching closer, her fingers squeezing his hip. She feels _incredible._ “I love you,” she finishes, soft and breathy, the waves of her orgasm still crashing through her—and he’s gone. 

His hips buck into her again, his face hiding in the crook of her neck, whispered curses, promises, unintelligible sounds breezing across her skin. His hips slow, then still completely, but he doesn’t pull away from her. Instead, he pulls her closer, holding her against him as he steadies his breath. He nestles his face against her skin, peppering soft kisses across every spot he can reach, clutching her close to himself. 

Without warning, Amy takes hold of his shoulders and pushes, rolling them both off of the stack of pillows. He holds her against his chest, laughing through his exhaustion. Amy plants her elbows on the bed above his shoulders, her fingers lazily playing with his hair as she studies his face. 

He grins at her, that dazed expression she knows so well making a home in his eyes. “What?” 

She shakes her head, her own blissful smile on her lips. “I’m glad I married you.” 

He stares up at her with hazy, loving eyes. “Me too.” 

They stay that way for a few moments, slow, loving kisses shared between them, before Jake pulls her up with him, settling comfortably against the pillows again. He strokes his fingers through her hair, pressing his lips to her forehead, soaking up a few moments of comfortable silence. 

“It’s funny,” he whispers. 

She tips her head up to look at him, but he’s looking across the room at a little, unlit chandelier. She shakes her head as she looks around the room. It’s really so much bigger than seems necessary—but Jake chose this room specifically for them, and even when she tried to convince him that the extra money for _this_ room could be better used toward their honeymoon, he was unrelenting. “What is?” 

“How different things are from the last time we were in this room.” 

He looks down at her, her expression just as confused as he expected to find it. “The last time we were…” She trails off, eyes flickering around the room. 

“Room 397,” Jake whispers. He looks around the room, a sort of glint in his eyes. She shakes her head, still unsure. He points over at the chandelier. “Where once upon a time, some dummy bumped into a pretty girl at a party…” He trails off, his eyes coming back to hers. “And his life changed forever.” 

The realization slowly washes over her features. “This is the same room as the Buffalo PD party?” He nods, his grin stretching across his face. “And that’s why you were so serious about us getting a different room after we were married?” 

“Well that and, ya’know, I didn’t think our room being situated next door to your parents was really the best environment for _this…”_ He gestures at their bodies. 

She laughs, rolling her eyes at him. “How did you…?” 

“I went back through my emails. Perks of never deleting them, I guess.” He grins proudly, earning another eye roll. 

“So that’s where we met?” She looks back over at the chandelier, then looks back up at him. He nods. She laughs softly, resting her head against his chest. 

“I still remember the look on your face when I pulled that peanut out of my pocket,” he laughs. 

“Somewhere between disgusted and confused, I’m guessing.” 

“Oh, yeah, it was about 50/50.” They both laugh. Amy’s fingers creep up against his jaw, rubbing comfortingly. 

“I love you so much, Jake.” 

He doesn’t think he’s ever smiled this much in his life. “I love you, too, Ames.” He pulls her tighter against his chest for a moment, pressing another slow kiss to the top of her head. “And I’m sorry. About—” His hands dip underneath the shirt that’s still draped over her shoulders, tugging at the scrap of lace hanging from her arm. “This.” 

She laughs. “That’s why I bought them, Jake.” 

He raises his eyebrows at her, smiling softly. “You really are my dream girl.” 

Amy shifts, adjusting one of the pillows. She turns, tugging at something hard sticking out from underneath the bottom one. She laughs as she pulls her laptop into her lap. She opens up the screen, dragging the cursor back to the beginning of the video. The opening chords of _Thinking Out Loud_ echo into the room once again. 

“We have to thank Charles for this video,” she says softly. “It’s really sweet.” 

He kisses her forehead again, brimming with happiness. “Yeah.” 

“But we should probably talk to him about all the secret pictures he takes of us, right?”

“Oh, definitely.” 

Jake’s lips tug into a smile at one of the old pictures of them. Amy snuggles closer against his chest. 

Jake Peralta from a few years ago may have felt restless cooped up in a hotel room all day. 

But Jake Peralta _-Santiago_ doesn’t leave the room _once._

And he wouldn’t have it any other way.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i want to reiterate for the millionth time how much i love every single one of you and how shocked and grateful i am that y'all have stuck around for this ridiculously long story??????? like why do i talk so much???? why is it closer to 300k words than 200k words??? and why have y'all read it? idk but i appreciate it and i hope the last few chapters thus far have felt worth all the mess i put you through in the beginning

**Author's Note:**

> this fic, like most things i do, got away from me. 
> 
> enjoy tho


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